(LIBRARY 

UNIV      '  .F 

CAI.I 

SAN  DIEGO      j 


,  WISDOM,  ELOQUENCE, 
1  GREAT  SPEECHES  OF 
COL,  R  G,  INGERSOLL 


WIT, 

WISDOM,  ELOQUENCE, 


AND 


GREAT  SPEECHES 


OF 


COL.  R.  G.  INGERSOLL, 


INCLUDING  ELOQUENT  EXTRACTS,  WITTY,  WISE,  PUNGENT,  TRUTH 
FUL  SAYINGS  AND  FULL  REPORTS  OF  THE  GREAT  SPEECHES 
OF   THIS    CELEBRATED    MAN,  TOGETHER   WITH   THE 
FUNERAL  ORATION  AT  HIS  BROTHER'S  GRAVE. 


EDITED   BY 

J.  B.  McCLURE, 


CHICAGO: 

RHODES  &  McCLURE,  PUBLISHERS. 
i83j. 


Entered  according-  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1881,  by 
J.  B.  rUfC'lure  Ac  K.  S.  Kbodcft, 

In  the  Offi-.-e  of  tho  Libnrian  of  Congress, 


The  general  public  are  quite  familiar  with  the  wit, 
wisdom,  and  eloquence  of  Col.  R.  G.  Ingersoll.  He  cer 
tainly  ranks  among  the  first  of  living  orators,  and  many  of 
his  sayings  are  as  remarkable  for  terseness,  pungency,  and 
truthfulness,  as  can  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the  English 
tongue.  The  Compiler  presents  in  this  volume  what  he 
has  selected  with  great  care,  and  what  he  believes  to  be  the 
wittiest,  wisest  and  most  eloquent  wcrds  of  this  noted  man. 

The  reader  will  also  find  a  number  of  the  Colonel's 
most  eluquent  and  celebrated  speeches  given  in  full,  includ 
ing  the  remarkable  funeral  oration  at  his  brother's  grave. 

J.  B.  McCLURE. 

CHICAGO,  June  20,  1881. 


A  PACB 

A  Country  Full  of  Kings,  -  .  .  -68 
A  Dark  Picture,  ....  79 
Admit  Your  Faults,  -  -  -  •  2O 
A  Dream  (Part  II),  .....  45 
American  Labor,  -  .  .  -  40 
America's  Coming  Greatness,  ....  82 
A  Michigan  Story,  -  -  -  -  49 
Amusing  Remarks  About  Money,  ...  70 
Amusing  Remarks  About  Getting  Up  Early  in  the  Morning  (Part  II)  13 
An  Amusing  and  Instructive  Speech  (in  full)  to  the  Farmers  on  Agri 
culture  (Part  II)  3 
An  Amusing  Story,  .....  71 
A  Nation  (Part  II),  -  -  .  -  56 
A  Panic  Picture,  .....  74 
A  Patent  Lecture,  -  -  -  -  30 
A  Picture,  -  ...  56 
A  Revelation  and  Revolution  (Part  II),  .  .  .48 
A  Scathing  Denunciation  on  Alcohol,  ...  12 
At  His  Brother's  Grave  (Part  II),  .  -  -  -65 


Beefsteak — How  the  Colonel  Cooks  It, 
Best  of  This  Earth  (Part  II), 
Bright  Money,       ... 


42 

7 
73 


Celebrated  Speech  (in  full)  to   the  Veteran   Soldiers   at   Indianapolis 

(Part  II),  .  .  .  -        27 

Civilizing  Influence  of  W  oman,  ...  28 

E 
Eloquent  Defense  of  Good  Government,      ...  54 


CONTENTS,  7 

P  PACK. 

Funeral  Oration  at  his  Brother's  Grave  (Part  II),             -  65 

Future  of  America  (Part  II),         ....  63 

G 

Good  Clothes,         -                -                -                .                -  28 

Good  Dollars  and  Good  Times,                      ...  57 

Great  Speech  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence  (Part  II),  -         47 

H 

Honest  Money,               .....  53 

"Honor  Brights,"                  -                 -                 -                 -  15 

How  a  Man  Should  Treat  His  Wife  and  Children  (Part  II),  -        21 

How  Ingersoll  Hopes  to  End  His  Days,      ...  43 

How  the  Colonel  Cooks  Beefsteak,                ...  42 

How  They  Did  When  Ingersoll  was  a  Farmer,                 -  21 

Human  Happiness,        -                -                -                •                -  9 

I 

Ideal  Farmer  (Part  II),        -  6 

Illinois,            ......  32 

Industry,                 -                 .                 .                 .                 .  27 

Influence  of  a  Home,  II 

Influence  of  Woman,              -                 .                 -                 .  -28 

Ingersoll  Believes  in  the  "  Fashions,"           ...  28 

Ingersoll  on  Alcohol,             -                 -                 -                 -  -         12 

Inge: soil  on  Cookery  (Part  II),                      ...  22 

Ingersollisms,        -                 -                 -                 -                 -  15 

Ingersollisms,  -  -  -  -  .33 

Ingersollisms,         -                 -                 -                 -                 -  -45 

Ingersollisms,                  .....  6l 

Ingersollisms,         -                 -                 -                -                 -  -85 

Ingersoll's  Apt  Words  on  State  Lines,'        ...  58 

Ingersoll's  Big  Horse  Race  (Part  II),                  -                 -  43 

Ingersoll's  Eloquent  Vision           ....  37 

Ingersoll's  Faith  in  American  Labor,                   -                 -  40 

Ingersoll's  History  of  State.  Sovereignty,  78 

L 

Love  and  Joy         -  29 

Love  and  Life,                 -                 -                 -                 -                .  15 

Love  vs.  Glory,      -                 -                 -                 .                .  -         10 

Liberty  of  Mind,              -                                  .                 -                 .  23 

Liberty  or  Death  (Part  II),                   -  58 

Little  Oi.es,                     .....  45 


8  CONTENTS. 

M  PACK. 

Marriage,                                                   -                                  -  -         15 

Money  and  Yardsticks,                                                      .  •                 72 

More  Solid  Shot  (Part  II),                   -                -                -  36 

O 

Oration  at  His  Brother's  Grave  (Part  II),                    .  .                65 

P 

Protection,                                                               -                -  .76 

R 

Reasons  Why  the  Colonel  is  Not  a  Democrat  (Part  II),  -        27 

Repudiation,                                                     -  75 

Rise  of  the  Republic  (Part  II),            -  51 

S 

Sarcastic  Words  on  State  Rights,  58 

Solid  Comfort  (Part  II),       -                -  25 

Some  Laughable  Remarks  About  Money,  70 

Speech  (in  full)  to  the  Veteran  Soldiers  at  Indianapolis  (Part  II),            27 

Speech  (in  full)  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence  (Part  II),  47 

Speech  (in  full)  to  the  Farmers  on  Farming  (Part  II),       -  3 

Speech  (in  full)  at  the  Banquet  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  50 

Speech  (in  full)  Nominating  Blaine  for  President,  .         65 

Speech  (in  full)  to  the  Volunteer  Soldiers,  50 

Speech  (in  full)  at  His  Brother's  Funeral  (Part  II),  -        65 

T 

The  Colonel's  Party,             -                -                -                -  -        42 

The  Happy  Farmer,      .....  24 

The  Happy  Home  (Part  II),                -                 -                 .  23 

The  Independent  Man,                   ....  40 

The  Kingdom  of  Kindness,                  -                 .                 .  -         25 

The  Man  that  Ingersoll  Hates,                     -                 -  -                 26 

The  Past  Rises  Before  Me  Like  a  Dream,           -                .  .37 

The  Struggle  for  Liberty,              -                -  .                8l 

The  Tariff,             -                .                                 .                .  -        77 

Thirty-three  Dozen  Eggs  for  One  Dollar  (Part  II),  .                16 

W 

What  a  Dollar  Can  Do,  41 

What  the  Colonel  Has  Seen  and  \\hat  He  Wants  to  See,  -        80 

What  We  Wnnt  T.>-day  (Part  IT),                 .                  -  -    '             6l 

Why  the  Colonel  is  a  Republican  (Part  TI),        .                 .  -         29 

What  the  Railroads  Have  Done  (Part  II)                   -  -                16 


INGERSOLL'S 

WIT,  WISDOM,  ELOQUENCE, 

AND 

GREAT  SPEECHES. 


Human  Happiness. 

I  tell  you  I  had  rather  make  somebody  happy ;  I  would 
rather  have  the  love  of  somebody ;  I  would  rather  go  to 
the  forest,  far  away,  and  build  me  a  little  cabin — bu'ld  it 
myself  and  daub  it  with  mud,  and  live  there  with  my  vile 


CABIN  HOME  OF  LINCOLN'S  PARENTS. 


and  children ;  I  had  rather  go  there  and  live  by  myself— 
our  little  family — and  have  a  little  path  that  led  down  to 
the  spring,  where  the  water  bubbled  out  day  and  night  like 
a  little  poem  from  the  heart  of  the  earth;  a  little  hut  with 
some  hollyhocks  at  the  corner,  with  their  bannered  bosoms 


1O  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

open  to  the  sun,  and  with  the  thrush  in  the  air,  liko  a  song 
of  joy  in  the  morning;  I  would  rather  live  there  and  have 
some  lattice  work  across  the  window,  so  that  the  sunlight 
would  fall  checkered  on  the  baby  in  the  cradle ;  I  would 
rather  live  there  and  have  my  soul  erect  and  free,  than  to 
live  in  a  palace  of  gold  and  wear  the  crown  of  imperial 
power  and  know  that  my  soul  was  slimy  with  hypocrisy. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich  and  great  and  powerful  in 
order  to  be  happy.  If  you  will  treat  your  wife  like  a 
splendid  flower,  she  will  fill  your  life  with  a  perfume  and 
with  joy.  I  believe  in  the  democracy  of  the  fireside;  I 
believe  in  the  republicanism  of  home ;  in  the  equality  of 
man  and  woman ;  in  the  equality  of  husband  and  wife. 


Love  vs.  Glory. 

A  little  while  ago  I  stood  by  the  grave  of  the  old  Napo 
leon — a  magnificent  tomb  of  gilt  and  gold,  fit  almost  for  a 
dead  deity — and  gazed  upon  the  sarcophagus  of  black  Egyp 
tian  marble,  where  rest  at  last  the  ashes  of  the  restless  man. 
I  leaned  over  the  balustrade  and  thought  about  the  career 
of  the  greatest  soldier  of  the  modern  world.  I  saw  him 
walking  upon  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  contemplating  suicide 
— I  saw  him  at  Toulon — I  saw  him  putting  down  the  mob 
in  the  streets  of  Paris — I  eavv  him  at  the  head  of  the  army 
of  Italy — I  saw  him  crossing  the  bridge  of  Lodi  with  the 
tri-color  in  his  hand — I  saw  him  in  Egypt,  in  the  shadows 
of  the  pyramids— I  saw  him  conquer  the  Alps  and  mingle 
the  eagles  of  France  with  the  eagles  of  the  crags.  I  saw 
him  at  Marengo — at  Ulm  and  Austerlitz.  I  saw  him  in 
Russia,  where  tlxe  infantry  of  the  snow  smd  the  cavalry  of 
the  wild  blast  scattered  his  legions  like  Winter's  withered 
leaves.  I  saw  him  at  Leipsic  iu  defeat  and  disaster — driven 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  1 1 

by  a  million  bayonets  back  upon  Paris — clutched  like  a  wild 
beast — banished  to  Elba.  I  saw  him  escape  and  retake  an 
empire  by  the  force  of  his  genius.  I  saw  him  upon  the 
frightful  field  of  Waterloo,  where  chance  and  fate  combined 
to  wreck  the  fortunes  of  their  former  king.  And  I  saw  him 
at  St.  Helena,  with  his  hands  crossed  behind  him,  gazing 
out  upon  the  sad  and  solemn  sea.  I  thought  of  the  orphans 
and  widows  he  had  made — of  the  tears  that  had  been  shed 
for  his  glory,  and  of  the  only  woman  who  ever  loved  him, 
pushed  from  his  heart  by  the  cold  hand  of  ambition.  And 
I  said  I  would  rather  have  been  a  French  peasant,  and 
worn  wooden  shoes.  I  would  rather  have  lived  in  a  hut 
with  a  vine  growing  over  the  door,  and  the  grapes  growing 
purple  in  the  kisses  of  the  Autumn  sun.  I  would  rather 
have  been  that  poor  peasant  with  rny  loving  wife  by  my 
side,  knitting  as  the  day  died  out  of  the  sky — with  my 
children  upon  my  knees  and  their  arms  about  me;  I  would 
rather  havo  been  that  man  and  ^one  down  to  the  tongueless 
silence  of  the  dreamless  dust,  than  to  have  been  that  im 
perial  impersonation  of  force  and  murder  known  as  Napo 
leon  the  Great.  And  so  I  would,  ten  thousand  thousand 
times. 


Influence  of  a  Home. 

There  can  be  no  such  thing  in  the  highest  sense  as  a 
home,  unless  you  own  it.  There  must  be  an  incentive  to 
plant  trees,  to  beautify  the  grounds,  to  preserve  and  im 
prove.  It  elevates  a  man  to  own  a  home.  It  gives  a  cer 
tain  independence,  a  force  of  character  that  is  obtained  in 
no  other  way.  A  man  without  a  home  feels  like  a  passen 
ger.  There  is  in  such  a  man  a  little  of  the  vagrant.  Homes 
make  patriots.  He  who  has  sat  by  his  own  fireside  with 


I  2  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

wife  and  children,  will  defend  it.  When  he  hears  the  word 
country  pronounced,  he  thinks  of  his  home. 

Few  men  have  been  patriotic  enough  to  shoulder  a  mus 
ket  in  defense  of  a  boarding-house. 

The  prosperity  and  glory  of  our  country  depend  upon 
the  number  of  our  people  who  are  the  owners  of  homes. 
Around  the  fireside  cluster  the  private  and  the  public  vir 
tues  of  our  race.  Raise  your  sons  to  be  independent  through 
labor — to  pursue  some  business  for  themselves,  and  upon 
their  own  account — to  be  self-reliant — to  act  upon  their 
own  responsibility,  and  to  take  the  consequences  like  men. 
Teach  them  above  all  things  to  be  good,  true  and  faithful 
husbands — winners  of  love,  and  builders  of  homes. 


Ingersoll  on  Alcohol — A  Scathing  Denunciation. 

Colonel  Ingersoll,  in  speaking  to  a  jury  in  a  case  which 
involved  the  manufacture  of  alcohol,  used  the  following 
eloquent  language : 

"I  am  aware  that  there  is  a  prejudice  against  any  man 
engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  alcohol.  I  believe  that 
from  the  time  it  issues  from  the  coiled  and  poisonous  worm 
in  the  distillery  until  it  empties  into  the  hell  of  death,  dis 
honor  and  crime,  that  it  demoralizes  everybody  that  touches 
it,  from  its  source  to  where  it  ends.  I  do  not  believe  any 
body  can  contemplate  the  subject  without  becoming  preju 
diced  against  that  liquor  crime. 

"All  we  have  to  do,  gentlemen,  is  to  think  of  the  wrecks 
on  either  bank  of  the  stream  of  death ;  of  the  suicides,  of 
the  insanity  ;  of  the  poverty,  of  the  ignorance,  of  the  des 
titution  ;  of  the  little  children  tugging  at  the  faded  and 
weary  breasts  of  weeping  and  despairing  wives,  asking  for 
bread ;  of  the  talented  men  of  genius  it  has  wrecked,  the 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  1$ 

men  struggling  with  imaginary  serpents,  produced  by  this 
devilish  thing;  and  when  you  think  of  the  jails,  the  alms- 
houses,  of  the  asylums,  of  the  prisons,  of  the  scaffolds 
upon  either  bank,  I  do  not  wonder  that  every  thoughtful 
man  is  prejudiced  against  this  stuff  called  alcohol. 


"  Intemperance  cuts  down  youth  in  its  vigor,  manhood 
in  its  strength,  and  age  in  its  weakness.  It  breaks  the 
father's  heart,  bereaves  the  doting  mother,  extinguishes 
natural  affections,  erases  conjugal  loves,  blots  out  filial  at 
tachments,  blights  parental  hope,  and  brings  down  mourn 
ing  age  in  sorrow  to  the  grave.  It  produces  weakness,  not 
strength ;  sickness,  not  health  j  death,  not  life.  It  makes 


14  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

wives  widows;  children  orphans;  fathers  fiends,  and  all  of 
them  paupers  and  beggars.  It  feeds  rheumatism,  nurses 
gout,  welcomes  epidemics,  invites  cholera,  imports  pesti 
lence  and  embraces  consumption.  It  covers  the  land  with 
idleness,  misery  and  crime.  It  fills  3*011  r  jails,  supplies  your 
alms-houses  and  demands  your  asylums.  It  engenders  con 
troversies,  fosters  quarrels,  and  cherishes  riots.  It  crowds 
your  penitentiaries  and  furnishes  victims  to  your  scafFulds. 
It  is  the  life  blood  of  the  gambler,  the  element  of  the  bur 
glar,  the  prop  of  the  highwayman  and  the  support  of  the 
midnight  incendiary.  It  countenances  the  liar,  respects 
the  thief,  esteems  the  blasphemer.  It  violates  obligations, 
reverences  fraud,  and  honors  infamy.  It  defames  benevo 
lence,  hates  love,  scorns  virtue  and  slanders  innocence.  It 
incites  the  father  to  butcher  his  helpless  offspring,  helps 
the  husband  to  massacre  his  wife,  and  the  child  to  grind 
the  paricidal  axe.  It  burns  up  men,  consumes  women, 
detests  life,  curses  God,  and  despises  heaven.  It  suborns 
witnesses,  nurses  perjury,  defiles  the  jury  box,  and  stains 
the  judicial  ermine.  It  degrades  the  citizen,  debases  the 
legislator,  dishonors  statesmen,  and  disarms  the  patriot. 
It  brings  shame,  not  honor;  terror,  not  safety;  despair, 
not  hope ;  misery,  not  happiness ;  and  with  the  malevo 
lence  of  a  fiend,  it  calmly  surveys  its  frightful  desolation, 
and  unsatisfied  with  its  havoc,  it  poisons  felicity,  kills  peace, 
ruins  morals,  blights  confidence,  slays  reputation,  and  wipes 
out  national  honors,  then  curses  the  world  and  laughs  at 
its  ruin. 

"It  does  all  that  and  more — it  murders  the  soul.  It  is 
the  son  of  villainies,  the  father  of  all  crimes,  the  mother  of 
abominations,  the  devil's  best  friend  and  God's  worst 
enemy." 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  1 5 


Ingersoll's  "Honor  Brights" — Love  and  Life. 

— Without  the  family  relation  is  tender,  pure  and  true, 
civilization  is  impossible. 

— I  believe  in  marriage.  If  there  is  any  Heaven  upon 
earth,  it  is  in  the  family  by  the  fireside. 

— The  happy  man  is  the  successful  man;  and  the  man 
who  makes  somebody  else  happy,  is  a  happy  man. 

— I  believe  marriage  should  be  a  perfect  and  equal  part 
nership.  I  do  not  like  a  man  who  thinks  he  is  boss. 

— If  there  is  a  man  I  detest,  it  is  the  man  who  thinks  he 
is  the  head  of  the  family — the  man  who  thinks  he  is  '-boss." 

— I  tell  you  this  is  a  pretty  good  world,  if  we  only  love 
somebody  in  it;  if  we  only  make  somebody  happy;  if  we 
are  only  honor  bright  in  it. 

— I  believe  in  marriage,  and  I  hold  in  utter  contempt  the 


1 6  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

opinions  of  long-haired  men  and  short-haired  women  who 
denounce  the  institution  of  marriage. 

— I  do  not  like  a  man  who  thinks  he  has  got  authority, 
and  that  the  woman  belongs  to  him — that  wants  for  his  wife 
a  slave.  I  would  not  have  a  slave  for  my  wife. 

— Love  is  the  only  thing  that  will  pay  ten  per  cent,  of 
interest  on  the  outlay.  Love  is  the  only  thing  in  which  the 
height  of  extravagance  is  the  last  degree  of  economy. 

— The  man  who  has  the  love  of  one  splendid  woman  is 
a  rich  man.  Joy  is  wealth,  and  love  is  the  legal  tender  of 
the  soul !  Love  is  the  only  thing  that  will  pay  ten  per  cent, 
to  borrower  and  lender  both. 

— I  tell  you  it  is  an  infamous  word  and  an  infamous  feeling 
— a  man  who  is  "boss,"  who  is  going  to  govern  in  his  fam 
ily  ;  and  when  he  speaks  let  all  the  rest  of  them  be  still; 
some  mighty  idea  is  about  to  be  launched  from  his  mouth. 
Do  you  know  I  dislike  this  man  ? 

— The  man  that  has  gained  the  love  of  one  good,  splen 
did,  pure  woman,  his  life  has  been  a  success,  no  matter  if 
he  dies  in  the  ditch;  and  if  he  gets  to  be  a  crowned  mon 
arch  of  the  world,  and  never  had  the  love  of  one  splendid 
heart,  his  life  has  been  an  ashen  vapor. 

— Now,  my  friends,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  woman  is 
the  equal  of  the  man.  She  has  all  the  rights  I  have,  and 
one  more,  and  that  is  the  right  to  be  protected.  That's 
my  doctrine.  You  are  married  ;  try  and  make  the  woman 
you  love  happy ;  try  and  make  the  man  you  love  happy. 

— If  you  are  the  grand  emperor  of  the  world,  you  had 
better  be  the  grand  emperor  of  one  loving  and  tender  heart, 
and  she  the  grand  empress  of  yours.  The  man  who  has 
really  won  the  love  of  one  good  woman  in  this  world,  I  do 
not  care  if  he  dies  a.  beggar,  his  life  has  been  a  success 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  Ij 

— Imagine  a  young  man  and  a  young  woman  courting, 
walking  out  in  the  moonlight  and  the  nightingale  singing  a 
song  of  pain  and  love,  as  though  the  thorn  touched  her 
heart — imagine  them  stopping  there  in  the  moonlight  and 
starlight  and  song,  and  saying,  "Now,  here,  let's  settle 
who's  'boss!'" 

— I  have  known  men  that  would  trust  a  woman  with  their 
heart  (if  you  call  that  thing  which  pushes  their  blood 
around,  a  heart),  and  with  their  honor  (if  you  call  that  fear 
of  getting  into  the  penitentiary,  honor) ;  I  have  known 
men  that  would  trust  that  heart  and  that  honor  with  a 
woman,  but  not  their  pocket-book — not  a  dollar  bill. 

— I  have  not  the  slightest  respect  for  the  ideas  of  those 
short-haired  women  and  long-haired  men  who  denounce 
the  institution  of  the  family;  who  denounce  the  institution 
of  marriage ;  but  1  hold  in  greater  contempt  the  husband 
who  would  enslave  his  wife.  I  hold  in  greater  contempt 
the  man  who  is  anythir  in  his  family  except  love  and  ten 
derness  and  kindness. 

— What  is'  wealth  compared  with  the  love  of  a  splendid 
woman  ?  People  tell  me  that  it  is  very  good  doctrine  for 
rich  folks,  but  it  won't  do  for  poor  folks.  I  tell  you  that 
there  is  more  love  in  the  huts  and  homes  of  the  poor,  than 
in  the  mansions  of  the  rich  ;  and  the  meanest  hut  with  love 
in  it  is  a  palace  fit  for  the  gods,  and  a  palace  without  that 
is  a  den  only  fit  for  wild  beasts. 

— Let  me  say  right  here,  I  regard  marriage  as  the  holiest 
institution  among  men*.  Without  the  fireside  there  is  no 
human  advancement;  without  the  family  relation  there  is 
no  life  worth  living.  Every  good  government  is  made  up 
of  good  families.  The  unit  of  government  is  the  family, 
and  anything  that  tends  to  destroy  the  family  is  perfectly 
devilish  and  infamous. 


1 8  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

— Whoever  marries  simply  for  himself  will  make  a 
take;  but  whoever  loves  a  woman  so  well  that  he  says,  UI 
will  make  her  happy,"  makes  no  mistake;  and  so  with  the 
woman  who  says,  "I  will  make  him  happy."  There  is 
only  one  way  to  be  happy,  and  that  is  to  make  somebody 
else  so,  and  you  can't  be  happy  cross-lots;  you  have  got  to 
go  the  regular  turnpike  road. 

— I  say  it  took  hundreds  of  years  for  woman  to  come 
from  a  state  of  slavery  to  marriage ;  and,  ladies,  the  chains 
that  were  upon  your  necks  and  the  bracelets  that  were  put 
upon  your  arms  were  iron,  and  they  have  been  changed  by 
the  touch  of  the  wand  of  civilization,  to  shining,  glittering 
gold.  Woman  came  from  a  condition  of  abject  slavery, 
and  thousands  and  thousands  are  in  that  condition  now. 

— Let  me  say  right  here — and  I  have  thought  a  good 
deal  about  it — let  me  say  right  here,  the  grandest  ambition 
that  any  man  can  possibly  have,  is  to  so  live  and  so  im 
prove  himself  in'  heart  and  brain  as  to  be  worthy  of  the 
love  of  some  splendid  woman  ;  and  the  grandest  ambition 
of  any  girl  is  to  make  horself  worthy  of  the  love  and  ado 
ration  of  some  magnificent  man.  That  is  my  idea,  and 
there  is  no  success  in  life  without  it. 

— I  would  not  want  the  love  of  a  woman  that  is  not  great 
enough,  grand  enough,  and  splendid  enough  to  be  free. 
I  will  never  give  to  any  woman  my  heart  upon  whom  I 
afterwards  would  put  chains.  Do  you  know  sometimes 
I  think  generosity  is  about  the  only  virtue  there  is?  How 
I  do  hate  a  man  that  has  to  be  begged  and  importuned 
every  minute  for  a  few  cents  by  his  wife.  "Give  me  a 
dollar?"  "What  did  you  do  with  that  fifty  cents  I  gave 
you  last  Christmas?" 

— When  a  man  comes  home  let  him  come  home  like  a 
ray  of  light  in  the  night  bursting  through  the  doors  and 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  19 

illuminating  the  darkness.  What  right  has  a  man  to  assas 
sinate  joy,  and  murder  happiness  in  the  sanctuary  of  love 
— to  be  a  cross  man,  a  peevish  man  ?  Is  that  the  way  he 
courted?  Was  there  always  something  ailing  him?  Was 
he  too  nervous  to  hear  her  speak  ?  When  I  see  a  man  of 
that  kind  I  am  always  sorry  that  doctors  know  so  much 
about  preserving  life  as  they  do. 

— I  tell  you  women  are  more  prudent  than  men.  I  tell 
yon,  as  a  rule,  women  are  more  truthful  than  men.  I  tell 
you  that  women  are  more  faithful  than  men — ten  times  as 
faithful  as  man.  I  never  saw  a  man  pursue  his  wife  into 
the  very  ditch  and  dust  of  degradation  and  take  her  in  his 
arms.  I  never  saw  a  man  stand  at  the  shore  where  she 
had  been  morally  wrecked,  waiting  for  the  waves  to  bring 
back  even  her  corpse  to  his  arms ;  but  I  have  seen  woman 
do  it.  I  have  seen  woman  with  her  white  arms  lift  man 
from  the  mire  of  degradation,  and  hold  him  to  her  bosom 
as  though  he  were  an  angel. 

— It  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich  in  order  to  be  happy. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  be  in  love.  Thousands  of  men  go 
to  college  and  get  a  certificate  that  they  have  an  education, 
and  that  certificate  is  in  Latin,  and  they  stop  studying,  and 
in  two  years  to  save  their  life  they  couldn't  read  the  certifi 
cate  they  got.  It  is  mostly  so  in  marrying.  They  stop 
courting  when  they  get  married.  They  think,  we  have 
won  her  and  that  is  enough.  Ah !  the  difference  before 
and  after !  How  well  they  look!  How  bright  their  eyes  ! 
How  light  their  steps,  and  how  full  they  were  of  generosity 
and  laughter !  I  tell  you  a  man  should  consider  himself 
in  good  luck  if  a  woman  loves  him  when  he  is  doing  his 
level  best !  Good  luck !  Good  luck !  And  another  thing 
that  is  the  cause  of  much  trouble  is  that  people  don't  count 
fairly.  They  do  what  they  call  putting  their  best  foot  for- 


20 


COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 


ward.  That  means  tying  a  little.  I  say  put  your  worst 
foot  forward.  If  you  have  got  any  faults,  admit  them.  If 
you  drink,  say  so  and  quit  it.  It'  you  chew  and  smoke  and 
swear,  say  so.  If  some  of  your  kindred  are  not  very  good 
people,  say  so.  Jf  you  have  had  two  or  three  that  died  on 
the  gallows,  or  that  ought  to  have  died  there,  say  so.  Tell 
all  your  faults,  and  if  after  she  knows  your  faults  she  says 
she  will  have  you,  you  have  got  the  dead  wood  on  that 
woman  forever.  I  claim  that  there  should  be  perfect 


BIRTHPLACE  OF  GENERAL  GRANT. 


equality  in  the  home,  and  I  cannot  think  of  anything  nearer 
Heaven  than  a  home  where  there  is  true  republicanism  and 
true  democracy  at  the  fireside.  All  are  equal.  And  then, 
do  you  know,  I  like  to  think  that  love  is  eternal ;  that  if 
you  really  love  the  woman,  for  her  sake,  you  will  love  her 
no  matter  what  she  may  do;  that  if  she  really  loves  you, 
for  your  sake,  the  same — if  you  really  love  her  you  will 
always  see  the  face  you  loved  and  won. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  11 

How  They  Did  when  Ingersoll  was  a  Farmer. 

When  I  was  a  farmer  they  used  to  haul  wheat  two  hun 
dred  miles  in  a  wagon  and  sell  it  for  thirty-five  cents  a 
bushel.  They  would  bring  home  about  three  hundred  feet 
of  lumber,  two  bunches  of  shingles,  a  bar-e^  ot  salt,  and  a 
cook  stove  that  never  would  draw  anr1  sver  did  bake. 

In  those  blessed  days  the  peo»;1  .ived  on  corn  and  bacon. 
Cooking  was  an  unknown  a-  .  Eating  was  a  necessity, 
not  a  pleasure.  It  was  hard  work  for  the  cook  to  keep  on 
good  terms  even  with  hunger. 

The  rain  held  the  roofs  in  perfect  contempt,  and  the 
snow  drifted  joyfully  on  the  floors  and  beds.  They  had 
no  barns.  The  horses  were  kept  in  rail  pens  surrounded 
with  straw.  Long  before  spring  the  sides  would  be  eaten 
away  and  nothing  but  roofs  would  be  left.  Food  is  fuel. 
When  the  cattle  were  exposed  to  all  the  blasts  of  winter, 
it  took  all  the  corn  and  oats  that  could  be  stuffed  into  them 
to  prevent  actual  starvation. 

In  those  times  farmers  thought  the  best  place  for  the  pig 
pen  was  immediately  in  front  of  the  house.  There  is  noth 
ing  like  sociability. 

Women  were  supposed  to  know  the  art  of  making  fires 
without  fuel.  The  wood-pile  consisted,  as  a  general  thing, 
of  one  log,  upon  which  an  axe  or  two  had  been  worn  out 
in  vain.  There  was  nothing  to  kindle  a  fire  with.  Pickets 
were  pulled  from  the  garden  fence,  clap  boards  taken  from 
the  house,  and  every  stray  plank  was  seized  upon  for  kind 
ling.  Everything  was  done  in  the  hardest  way.  Everjr- 
thing  about  the  farm  was  disagreeable.  Nothing  was  kept 
in  order.  Nothing  was  preserved.  The  wagons  stood  in 
the  sun  and  rain,  and  the  plows  rusted  in  the  fields.  There 
was  no  leisure,  no  feeling  that  the  work  was  done.  It  was 
all  labor  and  weariness  and  vexation  of  spirit.  The  crops 


22  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

were  destroyed  by  wandering  herds,  or  they  were  put  in 
too  late,  or  too  early,  or  they  were  blown  down,  or  caught 
by  the  frost,  or  devoured  by  bugs,  or  stung  by  flies,  or  euu- 
en  by  worms,  or  carried  away  by  birds,  or  dug  up  by 
gophers,  or  washed  away  by  floods,  or  dried  up  by  the  sun, 
or  rotted  in  the  stack,  or  heated  in  the  crib,  or  they  all  run 
to  vines,  or  tops,  or  straw,  or  cobs.  And  when  in  spite  of 
all  these  accidents  that  lie  in  wait  between  the  plow  and 
the  reaper,  they  did  succeed  in  raising  a  good  crop  and  a 
high  price  was  offered,  then  the  roads  would  be  impass 
able.  And  when  the  roads  got  good,  then  the  prices  went 
down.  Everything  worked  together  tor  evil. 

Nearly  every  fanner's  boy  took  an  oath  that  he  would 
never  cultivate  the  soil.  The  moment  they  arrived  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one  they  left  the  desolate  and  dreary  farms 
and  rushed  to  the  towns  and  cities.  They  wanted  to  be 
book-kaepers,  doctors,  merchants,  railroad  men,  insurance 
agents,  lawyers,  even  preachers,  anything  to  avoid  the 
drudgery  of  the  farm.  Nearly  every  boy  acquainted  with 
the  three  R's — reading,  writing  and  arithmetic — imagined 
that  he  had  altogether  more  education  than  ought  to  be 
wasted  in  raising  potatoes  and  corn.  They  made  haste  to 
get  into  some  other  business.  Those  who  stayed  upon  the 
farm  envied  those  who  went  away. 

A  few  years  ago  the  times  were  prosperous,  and  the 
young  men  went  to  the  cities  to  enjoy  the  fortunes  that 
were  waiting  for  them.  They  wanted  to  engage  in  some 
thing  that  promised  quick  returns.  They  built  railways, 
established  banks  and  insurance  companies.  They  specu 
lated  in  stocks  in  Wall  street,  and  gambled  in  grain  at 
Chicago.  They  became  rich.  They  lived  in  palaces. 
They  rode  in  carriages.  They  pitied  their  poor  brothers 
on  the  farms,  and  the  poor  brothers  envied  them. 

But  time  has  brought  its  revenge.     The  farmers  have  seen 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  23 

the  railroad  president  a  bankrupt,  and  the  road  in  the 
hands  of  a  receiver.  They  have  seen  the  bank  president 
abscond,  and  the  insurance  company  a  wrecked  and  ruined 
fraud.  The  only  solvent  people,  as  a  class,  the  only  inde 
pendent  people,  are  the  tillers  of  the  soil. 


Liberty  of  Mind. 

I  do  not  know  what  inventions  are  in  the  brain  of  the 
future;  I  do  not  know  what  garments  of  glory  may  be 
woven  for  the  world  in  the  loom  of  years  to  be;  we  are  just 
on  the  edge  of  the  great  ocean  of  discovery.  I  do  not 
know  what  is  to  be  discovered ;  I  do  riot  know  what 
science  will  do  for  us.  I  do  not  know  that  science  did 
just  take  a  handful  of  sand  and  make  the  telescope,  and 
with  it  read  all  the  starry  leaves  of  heaven ;  I  know  that 
science  took  the  thunderbolts  from  the  hands  of  Jupiter, 
and  now  the  electric  spark,  freighted  witli  thought  and  love, 
flashes  under  waves  of  the  sea;  I  know  that  science  stole 
a  tear  from  the  cheek  of  unpaid  labor,  converted  it  into 
steam,  and  created  a  giant  that  turns  with  tireless  arms  the 
countless  wheels  of  toil ;  I  know  that  science  broke  the 
chains  from  human  limbs  and  gave  us  instead  the  forces  of 
nature  for  our  slaves;  I  know  that  we  have  made  the 
attraction  of  gravitation  work  fur  us;  we  have  made  the 
lightnings  our  messengers  ;  we  have  taken  advantage  of  lire 
and  fiiines  and  wind  and  sea;  these  slaves  have  no  backs 
to  be  whipped  ;  they  have  no  hearts  to  be  lacerated  ;  they 
have  no  children  to  be  stolen,  no  cradles  to  be  violated.  I 
know  that  science  has  given  us  better  houses ;  I  know  it 
has  given  us  better  pictures  and  better  books;  I  know  it 
has  given  us  better  wives  and  better  husbands,  and  more 
beautiful  children.  I  know  it  has  enriched  a  thousand-fold 


24  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

our  lives ;  and  for  that  reason  I  am  in  favor  of  intellectual 
liberty. 


The  Happy  Farmer. 


There  is  a  quiet  about  the  life  of  a  farmer,  and  the  hope 
of  a  serene  old  age,  that  no  other  business  or  profession  can 
promise.  A  professional  man  is  doomed  some  time  to  feel 
that  his  powers  are  waning.  He  is  doomed  to  see  younger 
and  stronger  men  pass  him  in  the  race  of  life.  He  looks 
forward  to  an  old  age  of  intellectual  mediocrity.  He  will 
be  last  where  once  he  was  the  first.  But  the  farmer  goes, 
as  it  were,  into  partnership  with  nature — he  lives  with  trees 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  25 

and  flowers — he  breathes  the  sweet  air  of  the  fields.  There 
is  no  constant  and  frightful  strain  upon  his  mind.  His 
nights  are  filled  with  sleep  and  rest.  He  watches  his  flocks 
and  herds  as  they  feed  upon  the  green  and  sunny  slopes. 
He  hears  the  pleasant  rain  falling  upon  the  waving  corn, 
and  the  trees  he  planted  in  youth  rustle  above  him  as  he 
plants  others  for  the  children  yet  to  be. 

When  I  was  a  farmer  it  was  not  fashionable  to  set  out 
trees,  nor  to  plant  vines. 

When  you  visited  the  farm  you  were  not  welcomed  by 
flowers,  and  greeted  by  trees  loaded  with  fruit.  Yellow 
dogs  came  bounding  over  the  tumbled  fence  like  wild 
beasts.  There  is  no  sense — there  is  no  profit  in  such  a 
life.  It  is  not  living.  The  farmers  ought  to  beautify  their 
homes.  There  should  be  trees  and  grass,  and  flowers  and 
running  vines.  Everything  should  be  kept  in  order;  gates 
should  be  kept  on  their  hinges,  and  about  all  there  should 
be  the  pleasant  air  of  thrift.  In  every  house  there  should 
be*  a  bath-room.  Tiie  bath  is  a  civil izer,  a  refiner,  a  beau- 
tifler.  When  you  come  from  the  fields,  tired,  covered  with 
dust,  nothing  is  so  refreshing.  Above  all  things,  keep 
clean.  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  pig  in  order  to  raise  one. 
In  the  cool  of  the  evening,  after  a  day  in  the  field,  put  on 
clean  clothes,  take  a  seat  under  the  trees,  'mid  the  perfume 
of  flowers,  surrounded  by  your  family,  and  you  will  know 
what  it  is  to  enjoy  life  like  a  gentleman. 


The  Kingdom  of  Kindness. 

Above  all,  let  every  man  treat  his  wife  and  children  with 
infinite  kindness.  Give  your  sons  and  daughters  every 
advantage  within  your  power.  In  the  air  of  kindness  they 
will  grow  about  you  like  flowers.  They  will  fill  your  homes 


26  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

with  sunshine  and  all  your  years  with  joy.  Do  not  try  to 
rule  by  force. 

A  blow  from  a  parent  leaves  a  scar  on  the  soul.  1  should 
feel  ashamed  to  die  surrounded  by  children  I  had  whipped. 
Think  of  feeling  upon  your  dying  lips  the  kiss  of  a  child 
you  had  struck. 

See  to  it  that  your  wife  has  every  convenience.  Make 
her  life  worth  living.  Never  allow  her  to  become  a  servant. 
Wives,  weary  and  worn ;  mothers,  wrinkled  and  bent  be 
fore  their  time,  fill  homes  with  grief  and  shame.  If  you 
are  not  able  to  hire  help  for  your  wives,  help  them  your 
selves.  See  that  they  have  the  best  utensils  to  work  with. 
Women  cannot  create  things  by  magic.  Have  plenty  of 
wood  and  coal — good  cellars  and  plenty  in  them. 


The  Man  that  Ingersoll  Hates. 


A  cross  man  I  hate  above  all  things.  What  right  has  ne 
to  murder  the  sunshine  of  the  day?  What  right  has  he  to 
assassinate  the  joy  of  life?  Wiien  you  go  home  you  ought 
to  feel  the  light  there  is  in  the  house;  if  it  is  in  the  night 
it  will  burst  out  of  the  doors  and  windows  and  illuminate 
the  darkness.  It  is  just  as  well  to  go  home  a  ray  of  sun 
shine  as  an  old,  sour,  cross  curmudgeon,  who  thinks  lie  is 
the  head  of  the  family.  Wise  men  think  their  mighty 
brains  have  been  in  a  turmoil;  they  have  been  thinking 
about  who  will  be  alderman  from  the  fifth  ward  ;  they  have 
been  thinking  about  politics;  great  and  mighty  questions 
have  been  engaging  their  minds;  they  have  bought  calico 
at  eight  cents  or  six,  and  want  to  sell  it  for  seven.  Think 
of  the  intellectual  strain  that  must  have  been  upon  a  man, 
and  when  he  gets  home  everybody  else  in  the  house  must 
look  out  for  his  comfort.  A  woman  who  has  only  taken 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  27 

care  of  five  or  six  children,  and  one  or  two  of  them  maybe 
sick,  has  been  nursing  them  and  singing  to  them,  and  taking 
care  of  them,  and  trying  to  make  one  yard  of  cloth  do  the 
work  of  two,  she,  of  course,  is  fresh  and  fine  and  ready  to 
wait  upon  this  great  gentleman — the  head  of  the  family.  1 
don't  like  him  a  bit ! 


Industry. 

We  must  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  a  little  learning  unfits 
one  for  work.  There  are  hundreds  of  graduates  of  Yale 
and  Harvard  and  other  colleges,  who  are  agents  of  sewing 
machines,  solicitors  for  insurance,  clerks,  copyists,  in  short, 
performing  a  hundred  varieties  of  menial  service.  They 
seem  willing  to  do  anything  that  is  not  regarded  as  work — 
anything  that  can  be  done  in  a  town,  in  the  house,  in  an 
office,  but  they  avoid  farming  as  they  would  leprosy. 
Nearly  every  young  man  educated  in  this  way  is  simply 
ruined.  Such  an  education  ouiHit  to  be  called  ignorance. 

O  d? 

It  is  a  thousand  times  better  to  have  common  sense  without 
education  than  education  without  the  sense.  Boys  and  girls 
should  be  educated  to  help  themselves.  They  should  be 
taught  that  it  is  disgraceful  to  be  idle,  and  dishonorable  to 
be  useless. 

You  can  divide  mankind  into  two  classes;  the  laborers 
and  the  idlers,  the  supporters  and  the  supported,  the  honest 
and  the  dishonest.  Every  man  is  dishonest  who  lives  upon 
the  unpaid  labor  of  others,  no  matter  if  he  occupies  a  throne. 
All  laborers  should  be  brothers.  The  laborers  should  have 
equal  rights  before  the  world  and  before  the  law.  And  I 
want  every  fanner  to  consider  every  man  who  labors  either 
witn  Hand  or  brain  as  his  brother.  Until  genius  and  labor 
formed  a  partnership  there  was  no  such  thing  as  prosperity 
among  men.  Every  reaper  and  mower,  every  asricultural 


28  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

implement,  has  elevated  work  of  the  farmer,  and  his  voca 
tion  grows  grander  with  every  invention.  In  the  olden 
time  the  agriculturist  was  ignorant;  he  knew  nothing  of 
machinery,  he  was  the  slave  of  superstition. 


Ingersoll  Believes  in  Fashion,  Good  Clothes,  Etc. 

I  am  a  believer  in  fashion.  It  is  the  duty  of  every 
woman  to  make  herself  as  beautiful  and  attractive  as  she 
possibly  can. 

"Handsome  is  as  handsome  does,"  but  she  is  much 
handsomer  if  well  dressed.  Every  man  should  look  his 
very  best.  I  am  a  believer  in  good  clothes.  The  time 
never  ought  to  come  in  this  country  when  you  can  tell  a 
farmer's  daughter  simply  by  the  garments  she  wears.  I  say 
to  every  girl  and  woman,  no  matter  what  the  material  of 
your  dress  may  be,  no  matter  how  cheap  and  coarse  it  is, 
cut  it  and  make  it  in  the  fashion.  I  believe  in  jewelry. 
Some  people  look  upon  it  as  barbaric,  but  in  my  judgment, 
wearing  jewelry  is  the  first  evidence  the  barbarian  gives  of 
a  wish  to  be  civilized.  To  adorn  ourselves  seems  to  be  a 
part  of  our  nature,  and  this  desire  seems  to  be  everywhere 
and  in  everything.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  the  de 
sire  for  beauty  covers  the  earth  with  flowers.  It  is  this 
desire  that  paints  the  wings  of  moths,  tints  the  chamber  of 
the  shell,  and  gi?es  the  bird  its  plumage  and  its  song.  Oh! 
daughters  and  wives  if  you  would  be  loved,  adorn  your 
selves — if  you  would  be  adored,  be  beautiful ! 


Civilizing  Influence  of  Woman. 

I  don't  believe  man  ever  came  to  any  high  station  with 
out  woman.  Ther°  has  got  to  be  some  restraint,  something 
to  make  you  prudent,  something  to  make  you  industrious. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  29 

And  in  a  country  where  you  don't  need  an}T  bed-quilt  but 
a  cloud,  revolution  is  the  normal  condition  of  the  people. 
You  have  got  to  have  the  fireside;  you  have  got  to  have 
the  home,  and  there  by  the  fireside  will  grow  and  bloom 
the  fruits  of  the  human  race.  I  recollect  a  while  ago  I  was 
in  Washington  when  they  were  trying  to  annex  Santo  Do 
mingo.  They  said  :  "We  want  to^take  in  Santo  Domingo." 
Says  I :  "We  don't  want  it."  "  Why,"  said  they,  "it  is 
the  best  climate  the  earth  can  produce.  There  is  every 
thing  you  want. "  "Yes,"  said  I,  "but  it  won't  produce 
men.  We  don't  want  it.  We  have  got  soil  enough  now. 
Take  5,000  ministers  from  New  England,  5,000  presidents 
of  colleges,  and  5,000  solid  business  men  and  their  fami 
lies,  and  take  them  to  Santo  Domingo ;  and  then  you  will 
see  the  effect  of  climate.  The  second  generation  you  will 
see  barefooted  boys  riding  bareback  on  a  mule,  with  their 
hair  sticking  out  of  the  top  of  their  sombreros,  with  a 
rooster  under  each  arm  going  to  a  cock-fight  on  Sunday." 
You  have  got  to  have  the  soil ;  you  have  got  to  have  the 
climate,  and  you  have  got  to  have  another  thing — you  have 
got  to  have  the  fireside. 


Love  and  Joy. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  be  great  to  be  happy ;  it  is  not 
necessary  to  be  rich  to  be  just  and  generous,  and  to  have  a 
heart  filled  with  divine  affection.  No  matter  whether  you 
are  rich  or  poor,  use  your  wife  as  though  she  were  a  splen 
did  creation,  and  she  will  fill  your  life  with  perfume  and 
joy.  And  do  you  know  it  is  a  splendid  thing  for  me  to 
think  that  the  woman  you  really  love  will  never  grow  old 
to  you.  Through  the  wrinkles  of  time,  through  the  music 
of  years,  if  you  really  love  her,  you  will  always  see  the 


3O  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

face  yon  loved  and  won.  And  a  woman  who  really  loves 
a  man,  does  not  see  that  he  grows  older;  he  is  not  de 
crepit;  he  does  not  tremble;  he  is  not  old;  she  always 
sees  the  same  gallant  gentleman  who  won  her  hand  and 
heart.  I  like  to  think  of  it  in  that  way;  I  like  to  think  of 
all  passions;  love  is  eternal,  and  as  Shakspeare  says,  "Al 
though  time  with  his  sickle  can  rob  ruby  lips  and  sparkling 
eyes,  let  him  reach  as  far  as  he  can,  he  cannot  quite  touch 
love,  that  reaches  even  to  the  end  of  the  tomb."  And  to 
love  in  that  way  and  then  go  down  the  hill  of  life  together, 
and  as  you  go  down,  hear,  perhaps,  the  laughter  of  grand 
children,  and  the  birds  of  joy  and  love  will  sing  once  more 
in  the  leafless  branches  of  age.  I  believe  in  the  fireside. 
I  believe  in  the  democracy  of  home.  I  believe  in  the  re 
publicanism  of  the  family.  I  believe  in  liberty  and  equality 
with  those  we  love. 


A  Short  Patent  Lecture. 

I  despise  a  stingy  man.  I  don't  see  how  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  to  die  worth  fifty  milliouu  of  dollars  or  ten  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  in  a  city  full  of  want,  when  he  meets  almost 
every  day  the  withered  hand  of  beggary  and  the  white  lips 
of  famine.  How  a  man  can  withstand  all  that,  and  hold  in 
the  clutch  of  his  greed  twenty  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars, 
is  past  my  comprehension.  I  do  not  see  how  he  can  do  it. 
I  should  not  think  he  could  do  it  any  more  than  he  could 
keep  a  pile  of  lumber  where  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
men  were  drowning  in  the  sea.  I  should  not  think  he  could 
do  it.  Do  you  know  I  have  known  men  who  would  trust 
their  wives  with  their  hearts  and  their  honor,  but  not  with 
their  pocketbook ;  not  with  a  dollar.  "When  I  see  a  man 
of  that  kind  I  always  think  he  knows  which  of  these  articles 
is  the  most  valuable. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  31 

Think  of  making  your  wife  a  beggar!  Think  of  her 
having  to  ask  you  every  day  for  a  dollar,  or  for  two  dollars, 
or  for  fifty  cents !  "What  did  you  do  with  that  dollar! 
gave  you  last  week?" 


Think  of  having  a  wife  that  was  afraid  of  you !  What 
kind  of  children  do  you  expect  to  have  with  a  beggar  and 
a  coward  for  their  mother?  Oh!  I  tell  you  if  you  have 
but  a  dollar  in  the  world  and  you  have  got  to  spend  it, 
spend  it  like  a  king ;  spend  it  as  though  it  were  a  dry  leaf 
and  you  the  owner  of  unbounded  forests !  That's  the  way 
to  spend  it! 

I  had  rather  be  a  beggar  and  spend  my  last  dollar  like  a 
king,  than  be  a  king  and  spend  my  money  like  a  beggar. 
If  it's  got  to  go,  let  it  go.  Get  the  best  you  can  for  your 
family — try  to  look  as  well  as  you  can  yourself. 

When  you  used  to  go  courting,  how  nice  you  looked ! 
Ah,  your  eye  was  bright,  your  step  was  light,  and  you  just 
put  on  the  very  best  look  you  could.  Do  you  know  that  it 
is  insufferable  egotism  in  you  to  suppose  that  a  woman  is 
going  to  love  you  always  looking  as  bad  as  you  can  ?  Think 


32  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

of  it !  Any  woman  on  earth  will  be  true  to  you  forever 
when  you  do  your  level  best.  Some  people  tell  me,  "Your 
doctrine  about  loving  and  wives  and  all  that  is  splendid  for 
the  rich,  but  it  won't  do  for  the  poor."  I  tell  you  to-night 
there  is  on  the  average  more  love  in  the  homes  of  the  poor 
than  in  the  palaces  of  the  rich ;  and  the  meanest  hut  with 
love  in  it  is  fit  for  the  gods,  and  a  palace  without  love  is  a 
den  only  fit  for  wild  beasts.  That's  my  doctrine  !  You 
can't  be  so  poor  but  that  you  can  help  somebody. 

Good  nature  is  the  cheapest  commodity  in  the  world ; 
and  love  is  the  only  thing  that  will  pay  ten  per  cent,  to 
borrower  and  lender  both.  Don't  tell  me  that  you  have 
got  to  be  rich  !  We  have  all  a  false  standard  of  greatness 
in  the  United  States.  We  think  here  that  a  man  to  be 
great  rrust  be  notorious;  he  must  be  extremely  wealthy  or 
his  Dame  must  be  between  the  lips  of  rumor.  It  is  all 
nonsense! 

It  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich  to  be  great,  or  to  be  power 
ful  to  be  happy;  and  the  happy  man  is  the  successful  man. 
Happiness  is  the  legal-tender  of  the  soul.  Joy  is  wealth. 


Illinois. 

Let  me  tell  you  something  about  Illinois.  We  have 
fifty-six  thousand  square  miles  of  land — nearly  thirty-six 
million  acres.  Upon  these  plains  we  can  raise  enough  to 
feed  and  clothe  twenty  million  people.  Beneath  these 
prairies  were  hidden,  millions  of  ages  ago,  by  that  old 
miser,  the  sun,  thirty-six  thousand  square  miles  of  coal. 
The  Aggregate  thickness  of  these  veins  is  at  least  fifteen 
feet.  Think  of  a  column  of  coal  one  mile  square  and  one 
hundred  miles  high  !  All  this  came  from  the  sun.  What 
a  sunbeam  such  a  column  would  be !  Think  of  &I1  this 
force,  willed  and  left  to  us  by  the  dead  rno/mng  of  the 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  33 

world  !  Think  of  the  fireside  of  the  future  around  which 
will  sit  the  fathers,  mothers  and  children  of  the  years  to 
be  !  Think  of  the  sweet  and  happy  faces,  the  loving  and 
tender  eyes  that  will  glow  and  gleam  iu  the  saered  light  of 
all  these  flames ! 


Ingersollisms. 

— Nothing  is  ever  made  by  rascality. 

— It  is  necessary  to  the  hapoiness  of  man  that  he  be  faith 
ful  to  himself. 

— It  will  take  thousands  of  years  before  the  world  will  be- 
lievirigly  say  "  Right  makes  might." 

— It  takes  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  raise  a  good  Republi 
can. 

— A  mortgage  casts  a  shadow  on  the  sunniest  field.  There 
is  no  business  under  the  sun  that  can  pay  ten  per  cent. 

— Every  good  man  who  has  ever  lived  in  the  country,  no 
matter  whether  he  has  been  persecuted  or  not,  has  made 
the  world  better. 

— I  know  enough  to  know  that  agriculture  is  the  basis  of  all 
wealth,  prosperity  and  luxury.  I  know  that  in  the  country 
where  the  tillers  of  the  fields  are  free,  everybody  is  free  and 
ought  to  be  prosperous. 


34  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

— Free  speech  is  the  brain  of  the  Republic;  an  honest 
ballot  is  the  breath  of  its  life,  and  honest  money  is  the 
blood  that  courses  through  its  veins. 

—It  is  a  splendid  fact  in  nature  that  you  cannot  put  chains 
upon  the  limbs  of  others  without  putting  corresponding 
manacles  upon  your  own  brain. 

— I  propose  to  stand  by  the  Nation.  I  want  the  furnaces 
kept  hot.  I  want  the  sky  to  be  filled  with  the  smoke  of 
American  industry,  and  upon  that  cloud  of  smoke  will  rest 
forever  the  bow  of  perpetual  promise. 

— The  ballot  box  is  the  throne  of  America ;  the  ballot  box 
is  the  ark  of  the  covenant.  Unless  we  see  to  it  that  every 
man  who  has  a  right  to  vote  votes,  and  unless  we  see  to  it 
that  every  honest  vote  is  counted,  the  days  of  the  Republic 
are  numbered. 

— Why  is  it  that  New  England,  a  rock-clad  land,  blossoms 
like  a  rose  ?  Why  is  it  that  New  York  is  the  Empire  State 
of  the  great  Union?  I  will  tell  you.  Because  you  have 
been  permitted  to  trade  in  ideas. 

In  every  government  there  is  something  that  ought  to  be 
preserved ;  in  every  government  there  are  many  things 
that  ought  to  be  destroyed.  Every  good  man,  every  pa 
triot,  every  lover  of  the  human  race,  wishes  to  preserve  the 
good  and  destroy  the  bad. 

— I  despis  ;  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty.  I  believe  in 
the  rights  of  the  States,  but  not  in  the  sovereignty  of  the 
States.  States  are  political  conveniences.  Rising  above 
States  as  the  Alps  above  valleys  are  the  rights  of  man. 
Rising  above  the  rights  of  the  government  even  in  this 
Nation  are  the  sublime  rights  of  the  people.  Governments 
are  good  only  so  long  as  they  protect  human  rights.  But 
the  rights  of  a  man  never  should  be  sacrificed  upon  the 
altar  of  the  State  or  upon  the  altar  of  the  Nation. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  35 

— I  am  the  sole  proprietor  of  myself.  No  party,  no  organ 
ization,  has  any  deed  of  trust  on  what  little  brains  I  have, 
and  as  long  as  I  can  get  my  part  of  the  common  air  I  am 
going  to  tell  my  honest  thoughts.  One  man  in  the  right 
will  finally  get  to  be  a  majority. 

— Years  ago  I  made  up  my  mind  that  there  was  no  particu 
lar  argument  in  slander.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  for 
parties  as  well  as  for  individuals,  honesty  in  the  long  run 
is  the  best  policy.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  people 
were  entitled  to  know  a  man's  honest  thoughts. 

— I  like  a  black  man  who  loves  this  country  better  than  I 
do  a  white  man  who  hates  it.  I  think  more  of  a  black  man 
who  fought  for  our  flag  than  for  any  white  man  who  endea 
vored  to  tear  it  out  of  heaven  !  I  like  black  friends  better 
than  white  enemies.  And  I  think  more  of  a  man  black 
outside  and  white  inside  than  I  do  of  one  white  outside  and 
black  inside. 

— The  old  way  of  farming  was  a  great  mistake.  Every 
thing  was  done  the  wrong  way.  It  was  all  work  and  waste, 
weariness  and  want.  They  used  to  fence  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  of  land  with  a  couple  of  dogs.  Everything  was 
left  to  the  blessed  trinity  of  chance,  accident  and  mistake. 

— I  am  in  favor  of  the  idea  of  the  great  and  splendid  truth 
that  this  is  a  Nation  one  and  indivisible.  I  deny  that  we 
are  a  confederacy  bound  together  with  ropes  of  cloud  and 
chains  of  mist.  ThL  is  a  Nation,  and  every  man  in  it  owes 
his  first  allegiance  to  the  grand  old  flag  for  which  more 
blood  was  shed  than  for  any  other  flug  that  waves  in  the 
sight  of  heaven. 

— I  am  not  only  in  favor  of  free  speech,  but  I  am  also  in 
favor  of  an  absolutely  honest  ballot.  There  is  one  king  in 
this  country;  there  is  one  emperor ;  there  is  one  supreme 
czar ;  and  that  is  the  legally  expressed  will  of  the  majority 


36  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

of  the  people.  The  man  who  casts  an  illegal  vote,  the  man 
who  refuses  to  count  a  legal  vote,  poisons  the  fountain  of 
power,  poisons  the  spring  of  justice,  and  is  a  traitor  to  the 
only  king  in  this  land. 

— I  have  always  said;  and  I  say  again,  that  the  more  lib" 
erty  there  is  given  away,  the  more  you  have.  There  is 
room  in  this  world  for  us  all;  there  is  room  enough  for  all 
of  our  thoughts;  out  upon  the  intellectual  sea  there  is  room 
for  every  sail,  and  in  the  intellectual  air  there  is  space  for 
every  wing.  A  man  that  exercises  a  right  that  he  will  not 
give  to  others  is  a  barbarian.  A  State  that  does  not  allow 
free  speech  is  uncivilized,  and  is  a  disgrace  to  the  Ameri 
can  Union. 

—I  have  been  told  that  during  the  war  we  had  plenty  of 
money.  I  never  sa\v  it.  I  lived  years  without  seeing  a 
dollar.  I  saw  promises  for  dollars,  but  not  dollars.  And 
t  e  greenback)  unless  you  have  the  gold  behind  it,  is  no 
more  a  dollar  than  a  bill  of  fare  is  a  dinner.  You  cannot 
make  a  paper  dollar  without  taking  a  dollar's  worth  of  paper. 
We  must  have  paper  that  represents  money.  I  want  it 
issued  by  the  government,  and  I  want  behind  every  one  of 
these  dollars  either  a  gold  or  silver  dollar,  so  that  every 
greenback  under  the  flag  can  lift  up  its  hand  and  swear,  "I 
know  that  my  redeemer  liveth." 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE. 


37 


Ingersoll's  Eloquent  Vision. 

The  following  remarkably  eloquent  words  are  taken 
from  Col.  Ingersoll's  brilliant  address  to  the  veteran  sol 
diers  at  Indianapolis: 

The  past,  as  it  were,  rises  before  me  like  a  dream.  Again 
we  are  in  the  great  struggle  for  National  life.  We  hear 
the  sound  of  preparation — the  music  of  the  boisterous 
drums — the  silver  voices  of  the  heraic  bugles.  We  see 
thousands  of  assemblages,  and  hear  the  appeals  of  orators  ; 
we  see  the  pale  cheeks  of  women,  and  the  flushed  faces  of 
men  ;  and  in  those  assemblages  we  see  all  the  dead  whose 
dust  we  have  covered  with  flowers.  We  lose  sight  of  them 
no  more.  We  are  with  them  when  they  enlist  in  the  great 


38  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

army  of  freedom.  We  see  them  part  with  those  they  love. 
Some  are  walking  for  the  last  time  in  quiet  woody  places 
with  the  maidens  they  adore.  We  hear  the  whisperings 
and  the  sweet  vows  of  eternal  love  as  they  lingeringly  part 
forever.  Others  are  bending  over  cradles  kissing  babies 
that  are  asleep.  Some  are  receiving  the  blessings  of  old 
men.  Some  are  parting  with  mothers  who  hold  them  and 
press  them  to  their  hearts  again  and  again,  and  say  noth 
ing  ;  and  some  are  talking  with  wives,  and  endeavoring 
with  brave  words  spoken  in  the  old  tones  to  drive  away  the 
awful  fear.  We  see  them  part.  We  see  the  wife  standing 
in  the  door  with  the  babe  in  her  arms— standing  in  the  sun 
light  sobbing — at  the  turn  of  the  road  a  hand  waves — she 
answers  by  holding  high  in  her  loving  hands  the  child. 
He  is  gone,  and  forever. 

We  see  them  all  as  they  march  proudly  away  under  the 
flaunting  flags,  keeping  time  to  the  wild  grand  music  of 
war — marching  down  the  streets  of  the  great  cities — through 
the  towns  and  across  the  prairies — down  to  the  fields  of 
glory,  to  do  and  to  die  for  the  eternal  right. 

We  go  with  them  one  and  all.  We  are  by  their  side  on 
all  the  gory  fields,  in  all  the  hospitals  of  pain — on  all  the 
weary  marches.  We  stand  guard  with  them  in  the  wild 
storm  and  under  the  quiet  stars.  We  are  with  them  in 
ravines  running  with  blood — in  the  furrows  of  old  fields. 
We  are  with  them  between  contending  hosts,  unable  to 
move,  wild  with  tiiirst,  the  life  ebbing  slowly  away  among 
the  withered  leaves.  We  see  them  pierced  by  balls  and 
torn  with  shells  in  the  trenches  of  forts,  and  in  the  whirl 
wind  of  the  charge,  where  men  become  iron  with  nerves  of 
steel. 

We  are  with  them  in  the  prisons  of  hatred  and  famine 
but  human  speech  can  never  tell  what  they  endured. 

We  are  at  home  when  the  news  comes  that  they  are  dead. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  39 

We  see  the  maiden   in  the  shadow  of  her  sorrow.     "We  see 
the  silvered  head  of  the  old  man  bowed  with  the  last  grief. 

The  past  rises  before  us,  and  we  see  four  millions  of  hu 
man  beings  governed  by  the  lash — we  see  them  bound 
hand  and  foot — we  hear  the  strokes  of  cruel  whips — we  see 
hounds  tracking  women  through  tangled  swamps.  We  see 
babes  sold  from  the  breasts  of  mothers.  Cruelty  unspeak 
able  !  Outrage  infinite  ! 

Four  million  bodies  in  chains — four  million  souls  in  fet 
ters.  All  the  sacred  relations  of  wife,  mother,  father  and 
child,  trampled  beneath  the  brutal  feet  of  might.  And  all 
this  was  done  under  our  own  beautiful  banner  of  the  free. 

The  past  rises  before  us.  We  hear  the  roar  and  shriek 
of  the  bursting  shell.  The  broken  fetters  fall.  There 
heroes  died.  We  look.  Instead  of  slaves  we  see  men  and 
women  and  children.  The  wand  of  progress  touches? 
the  auction-block,  the  slave-pen,  and  the  whipping-post 
and  we  see  homes  and  firesides,  and  school-houses  and 
books,  and  where  all  was  want  and  crime,  and  cruelty  and 
fear,  we  see  the  faces  of  the  free. 

These  heroes  are  dead.  They  died  for  liberty — they 
died  for  us.  They  are  at  rest.  They  sleep  in  the  land 
they  made  free,  under  the  flag  they  rendered  stainless,  un 
der  the  solemn  pines,  the  sad  hemlocks,  the  tearful  willows, 
the  embracing  vines.  They  sleep  beneath  the  shadows  of 
the  clouds,  careless  alike  of  sunshine  or  storm,  each  in  the 
windowless  palace  pi  rest.  Earth  may  run  red  with  other 
wars — they  are  at  peace.  In  the  midst  of  battle,  in  the 
roar  of  conflict,  they  found  the  serenity  of  death.  I  have 
one  sentiment  for  the  soldiers  living  and  dead — cheers  for 
the  living  and  tears  for  the  dead. 


4O  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

The  Colonel's  Faith  in  American  Labor. 

I  believe  in  American  labor,  and  I  tell  you  why.  The 
other  day  a  man  told  me  that  we  had  produced  in  the 
United  States  of  America  one  million  tons  of  rails.  How 
much  are  the}'  worth  ?  Sixty  dollars  a  ton.  In  other  words, 
the  million  tons  are  worth  $60,000,000.  How  much  is  a 
ton  of  iron  worth  in  the  ground  ?  Twenty-five  cents. 
American  labor  takes  25  cents  of  iron  in  the  ground  and 
adds  to  it  $59.75.  One  million  tons  of  rails,  and  the  raw 
material  not  worth  $24.000.  We  build  a  ship  in  the  United 
States  worth  $500,000,  and  the  value  of  the  ore  in  the 
earth,  of  the  trees  in  the  great  forest,  of  all  that  enters 
into  the  composition  of  that  ship  bringing  $500,000  in  gold 
is  only  $20,000;  $480,000  by  American  labor,  American 
muscle,  coined  into  gold  ;  American  brains  made  a  legal- 
tender  the  world  around. 


The  Independent  Man. 

It  is  a  thousand  times  better  to  be  a  whole  farmer  than 
part  of  a  mechanic.  It  is  better  to  till  the  ground  and 
work  for  yourself  than  to  be  hired  by  corporations.  Every 
man  should  endeavor  to  belong  to  himself. 

About  seven  hundred  years  ago,  Kheyam,  a  Persian, 
said  :  "Why  should  a  man  who  possesses  a  piece  of  bread 
securing  life  for  two  days,  and  who  has  a  cup  of  water — 
why  should  such  a  man  serve  another?" 

Young  men  should  not  be  satisfied  with  a  salary.  Do 
not  mortgage  the  possibilities  of  your  future.  Have  the 
courage  to  take  life  as  it  comes,  feust  or  famine.  Think  of 
hunting  a  gold  mine  for  a  dollar  a  day,  and  think  of  finding 
one  for  another  man.  How  would  you  feel  then  ? 

We  are  lacking  in  true  courage,   when,  for  fear  of  the 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  4! 

future,  we  take  the  crusts  and  scraps  and  niggardly  salaries 
of  the  present.  I  had  a  thousand  times  rather  have  a  farm 
and  be  independent,  than  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States,  without  independence,  filled  with  doubt  and  trem 
bling,  feeling  of  the  popular  pulse,  resorting  to  art  and  art- 
tifice,  inquiring  about  the  wind  of  opinion,  and  succeeding 
at  last  in  losing  my  self-respect  without  gaining  the  respect 
of  others. 

Man  needs  more  manliness,  more  real  independence. 
We  must  take  care  of  ourselves.  This  we  can  do  by  labor, 
and  in  this  way  we  can  preserve  our  independence.  We 
should  try  and  choose  that  business  or  profession,  the  pur 
suit  of  which  will  give  us  the  most  happiness.  Happiness 
is  wealth.  We  can  be  happy  without  being  rich — without 
holding  office — without  being  famous.  I  am  not  sure  that 
we  can  be  happy  with  wealth,  with  office,  or  with  fame. 


What  a  Dollar  Can  Do. 

Ainsworth  R.  Spofford — says  Col.  Ingersoll — gives  the 
following  facts  about  interest : 

"One  dollar  loaned  for  one  hundred  years  at  six  per 
cent.,  with  the  interest  collected  annually  and  added  to  the 
principal,  will  amount  to  three  hundred  and  forty  dollars. 
At  eight  per  cent,  it  amounts  to  two  thousand  two  hundred 
and  three  dollars.  At  three  per  cent,  it  amounts  only  to 
nineteen  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents.  At  ten  per  cent,  it 
is  thirteen  thousand  eight  hundred  and  nine  dollars,  or 
about  seven  hundred  times  as  much.  At  twelve  per  cent, 
it  amounts  to  eighty-four  thousand  and  seventy-five  dollars, 
or  more  than  four  thousand  times  as  much.  At  eighteen 
per  cent,  it  amounts  to  fifteen  million  one  hundred  and  for 
ty-five  thousand  and  seven  dollars.  At  twenty-four  per 


42  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

cent,  (which  we  sometimes  hear  talked  of)  it  reaches  the 
enormous  sum  of  two  billion  five  hundred  and  fifty-one  mil 
lion  seven  hundred  and  ninety-five  thousand  four  hundred 
and  four  dollars." 

One  dollar  at  compound  interest,  at  twenty-four  per 
cent,  for  one  hundred  years,  would  produce  a  sum  equal 
to  our  national  debt. 

Interest  eats  night  and  day,  and  the  more  it  eats  the 
hungrier  it  grows.  The  farmer  in  debt,  lying  awake  at 
night,  can,  if  he  listens,  hear  it  gnaw.  If  he  owes  nothing, 
he  can  hear  his  corn  grow.  Get  out  of  debt  as  soon  as  you 
possibly  can.  You  have  supported  idle  avarice  and  lazy 
economy  long  enough. 


The  Colonel's  Party. 

I  wish  to  belong  to  that  party  which  is  prosperous  when 
the  country  is  prosperous.  I  belong  to  that  party  which  is 
not  poor  when  the  golden  billows  are  running  over  the  seas 
of  wheat.  I  belong  to  that  party  that  is  prosperous  when 
there  are  oceans  of  corn,  and  when  the  cattle  are  upon  the 
thousand  .hills.  I  belong  to  that  party  which  is  prosperous 
when  the  furnaces  are  aflame ;  and  when  you  dig  coal  and 
iron  and  silver;  when  everybody  has  enough  to  eat;  when 
everybody  is  happy ;  when  the  children  are  all  going  to 
school ;  and  when  joy  covers  my  nation  as  with  a  garment. 
That  party  which  is  prosperous  then,  that  is  my  party. 


How  the  Colonel  Cooks  Beefsteak. 

There  ought  to  be  a  law  making  it  a  crime,  punishable 
by  imprisonment,  to  fry  beefsteak.  Broil  it;  it  is  just  as 
easy,  and  when  broiled  it  is  delicious.  Fried  beefsteak 
is  not  fit  for  a  wild  beast.  You  can  broil  even  on  a  stove. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  43 

Shut  the  front  damper — open  the  back  one,  then  take  of  a 
griddle.  There  will  then  be  a  draft  down  through  this 
opening.  Put  on  your  steak,  using  a  wire  broiler,  and  not 
a  particle  of  smoke  will  touch  it,  for  the  reason  that  the 
smoke  goes  down.  If  you  try  to  broil  it  with  the  front 
damper  open,  the  smoke  will  rise.  For  broiling,  coal, 
even  soft  coal,  makes  a  better  fire  than  wood. 


How  Ingersoll  Hopes  to  End  His  Days. 

I  can  imagine  no  condition  that  carries  with  it  such  a 
promise  of  joy  as  that  of  the  farmer  in  the  early  winter. 
He  has  his  cellar  filled — he  has  made  every  preparation  for 
the  days  of  snow  and  storm — he  looks  forward  to  three 
months  of  ease  and  rest ;  to  three  months  of  fireside  con 
tent;  three  months  with  wife  and  children;  three  months 
of  long,  delightful  evenings;  three  months  of  home  ;  three 
months  of  solid  comfort. 

"When  the  life  of  the  farmer  is  such  as  I  have  described, 
the  cities  and  towns  will  not  be  filled  with  want — the  streets 
will  not  be  crowded  with  wrecked  rogues,  broken  bankers, 
and  bankrupt  speculators.  The  fields  will  be  tilled,  and 
country  villages,  almost  hidden  by  trees,  and  vines,  and 
flowers,  filled  with  industrious  and  happy  people,  will  nes 
tle  in  every  vale  and  gleam  like  gems  on  every  plain. 

The  idea  must  be  done  away  with  that  there  is  something 
intellectually  degrading  in  cultivating  the  soil.  Nothing 
can  be  nobler  than  to  be  useful.  Idleness  should  not  be 
respectable. 

If  farmers  will  cultivate  well,  and  without  waste;  if  they 
will  so  build  that  their  houses  will  be  warm  in  winter  and 
cool  in  summer;  if  they  will  plant  trees  and  beautify  their 
homes;  if  they  will  occupy  their  leisure  in  reading,  in 
thinking,  in  improving  their  minds  and  in  devising  ways 


44  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

and  means  to  make  their  business  profitable  and  pleasant  •, 
if  they  will  live  nearer  together  and  cultivate  sociability; 
if  they  will  come  together  often;  if  they  will  have  reading 
rooms  and  cultivate  music ;  it'  they  wil  have  bath-rooms, 
ice-houses  and  good  gardens ;  if  their  wives  can  have  an 
easy  time  ;  if  the  nights  can  be  taken  for  sleep  and  the  ev 
enings  for  enjoyment,  everybody  will  be  in  love  with  the 
fields.  Happiness  should  be  the  object  of  life,  and  if  life 
on  the  farm  can  be  ma  !e  really  happy,  the  children  will 
grow  up  in  love  with  the  meadows,  the  streams,  the  woods 
and  the  old  home.  Around  the  farm  will  cling  and  cluster 
the  happy  memories  of  the  delightful  years. 

Remember,  I  pray  you,  that  you  are  in  partnership  with 
all  labor — that  you  should  join  hands  with  all  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  toil,  and  that  all  who  work  belong  to  the  same 
noble  family. 

For  my  part,  I  envy  the  man  who  has  lived  on  the  same 
broad  acres  from  his  boyhood,  who  cultivates  the  fields 
where  in  youth  he  played,  and  lives  where  his  father  lived 
and  died. 

I  can  imagine  no  sweeter  way  to  end  one's  life  than  in 
the  quiet  of  the  country,  out  of  the  mad  race  for  money, 
place  and  power — far  from  the  demands  of  business — out  of 
the  dusty  highway  where  fools  struggle  and  strive  for  the 
hollow  praise  of  other  fools. 

Surrounded  by  these  pleasant  fields  and  faithful  friends,  by 
those  I  have  loved,  I  hope  to  end  my  days. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE. 


Little  Ones. 

— A  good  way  to  make  children  tell  the  truth  is  to  tell  it 
yourself.  Keep  your  word  with  your  child  the  same  as  you 
would  with  yonr  banker. 

— I  intend  so  to  live  that  when  I  die  my  children  can  come 
to  my  grave  and  truthfully  say:  "He  who  sleeps  here 
never  gave  us  one  moment  of  pain." 

— If  you  tell  a  child  you  will  do  anything,  either  do  it  or 
give  the  child  the  reason  why.  Truth  is  born  of  confidence. 
It  comes  from  the  lips  of  love  and  liberty. 

— We  have  been  saved  by  that  splendid  thing  called  inde 
pendence,  and  I  want  to  see  more  of  it,  day  after  day,  and 
I  want  to  see  children  raised  so  they  will  have  it.  That  is 
my  doctrine. 

— Make  your  home  happy.  Be  honest  with  the  children ; 
divide  fairly  with  them  in  everything.  Give  them  a  little 
liberty,  and  you  cannot  drive  them  out  of  the  house.  They 
will  want  to  stay  there.  Make  home  pleasant. 

— Let  children  have  some  daylight  at  home  if  you  want  to 
keep  them  there,  arid  don't  commence  at  the  cradle  and 


46  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

yell,  "Don't!"  "Don't!"  "Stop!"  That  is  nearly  all 
that  is  said  to  a  young  one  from  the  cradle  until  he  is 
twenty-one  years  old. 

— Another  thing :  let  the  children  eat  what  they  want  to. 
Let  them  commence  at  whichever  end  of  the  dinner  they 
desire.  That  is  my  doctrine.  They  know  what  they  want 
much  better  than  you  do.  Nature  is  a  great  deal  smarter 
than  you  ever  were. 

— Every  little  while  some  door  is  thrown  open  in  some 
orphan  asylum,  and  there  we  see  the  bleeding  back  of  a 
child  whipped  beneath  the  roof  that  was  raised  by  love. 
It  is  infamous,  and  the  man  that  can't  raise  a  child  without 
the  whip  ought  not  to  have  a  child. 

— Don't  plant  your  children  in  lorg,  straight  rows,  like 
posts.  Let  them  have  light  and  air,  and  let  them  grow 
beautiful  as  palms.  When  I  was  a  little  boy,  children  went 
to  bed  when  they  were  not  sleepy,  and  always  got  up  when 
they  were.  I  would  like  to  see  that  changed,  but  they  say 
we  are  too  poor,  some  of  us,  to  do  it.  Well,  all  right.  It 
is  as  easy  to  wake  a  child  with  a  kiss  as  with  a  blow ;  with 
kindness  as  with  a  curse. 

— I  tell  you  there  is  something  splendid  in  man  that  will 
not  always  mind.  Why,  if  we  had  done  as  the  kings  told 
us  five  hundred  years  ago,  we  would  all  have  been  slaves. 
If  we  had  done  as  the  priests  told  us,  we  would  all  have 
been  idiots.  If  we  had  done  as  the  doctors  told  us,  we 
would  all  have  been  dead.  We  have  been  saved  by  dis 
obedience.  We  have  been  saved  by  that  splendid  thing 
called  independence,  and  I  want  to  see  more  of  it,  day  after 
day,  and  I  want  to  see  children  raised  so  they  will  have  it. 
That  is  my  doctrine.  Give  the  children  a  chance. 

— Be  perfectly  honor  bright  with  your  children,  and  they 
will  be  your  friends  when  you  are  old.  Don't  try  to  teach 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  47 

them  something  they  can  never  learn.  Don't  insist  upon 
their  pursuing  some  calling  they  have  no  sort  of  faculty 
for.  Don't  make  that  poor  girl  play  ten  years  on  a  piano 
when  she  has  no  ear  for  music,  and  when  she  has  practiced 
until  she  can  play  "Bonaparte  crossing  the  Alps,"  you 
can't  tell  after  she  has  played  it  whether  .Bonaparte  ever 
got  across  or  not.  Men  are  oaks,  women  are  vines,  chil 
dren  are  flowers,  and  if  there  is  any  Heaven  in  this  world, 
it  is  in  the  family.  It  is  where  the  wife  loves  the  husband, 
and  the  husband  loves  the  wife,  and  where  the  dimpled 
arms  of  children  are  about  the  necks  of  both. 

— If  there  is  one  of  you  here  that  ever  expect  to  whip  your 
child  again,  let  me  ask  you  something.  Have  your  photo 
graph  taken  at  the  time  and  let  it  show  your  face  red  with 
vulgar  anger,  and  the  face  of  the  little  one  with  eyes  swim 
ming  in  tears,  and  the  little  chin  dimpled  with  fear,  look 
ing  like  a  piece  of  water  struck  by  a  sudden  cold  wind.  If 
that  little  child  should  die,  I  cannot  think  of  a  sweeter  way 
to  spend  an  Autumn  afternoon  than  to  take  that  photograph 
and  go  to  the  cemetery,  when  the  maples  are  clad  in  tender 
gold,  and  when  little  scarlet  runners  are  coming,  like  poems 
of  regret,  from  the  sad  heart  of  the  earth;  and  sit,  down 
upon  that  mound,  and  look  upon  that  photograph,  and 
think  of  the  flesh,  now  dust,  that  you  beat.  Just  think  of 
it.  I  could  not  bear  to  die  in  the  arms  of  a  child  that  I 
had  whipped.  I  could  not  bear  to  feel  upon  my  lips,  when 
they  were  withered  beneath  the  touch  of  death,  the  kiss  of 
one  that  I  had  struck. 

— I  said,  and  I  say  again,  no  day  can  be  so  sacred  but  that 
the  laugh  of  a  child  wili  make  the  holiest  day  more  sacred 
still.  Strike  with  hand  of  fire,  oh,  wierd  musician,  thy 
harp,  strung  with  Apollo's  golden  hair;  fill  the  vast  cathe 
dral  aisles  with  symphonies  sweet  and  dim,  deft  toucher  of 


48  COL.  INGERSOI.L'S  WIT, 

the  organ  keys;  blow,  bugler,  blow,  until  thy  silver  notes 
do  touch  the  skies,  with  moonlit  waves,  and  charm  the 
lovers  wandering  on  the  vine-clad  hills :  but  know,  your 
sweetest  strains  are  discords  all,  compared  with  childhood's 
happy  laugh,  the  laugh  that  fills  the  eyes  with  light  and 
every  heart  with  joy;  oh,  rippling  river  of  lite,  thou  art 
the  blessed  boundary-line  between  the  beasts  and  man,  and 
every  wayward  wave  of  thine  doth  drown  some  fiend  of 
care;  oh,  laughter,  divine  daughter  of  joy,  make  dimples 
enough  in  the  cheeks  of  the  world  to  catch  and  hold  and 
glorify  all  the  tears  of  grief. 

— I  like  to  hear  children  at  the  table  telling  what  big  things 
they  have  seen  during  the  day;  I  like  to  hear  their  merry 
voices  mingling  with  the  clatter  of  knives  and  forks.  I  had 
rather  hear  that  than  any  opera  that  was  ever  put  upon  the 
stage.  I  hate  this  idea  of  authority.  I  hate  dignity.  I 
never  saw  a  dignified  man  that  was  not  after  all  an  old 
idiot.  Dignity  is  a  mask;  a  dignified  man  is  afraid  that 
you  will  know  he  does  not  know  everything.  A  man  of 
sense  and  argument  is  always  willing  to  admit  what  he 
don't  know — why? — because  there  is  so  much  that  he  does 
know;  and  that  is  the  first  step  towards  learning  anything 
— willingness  to  admit  what  you  don't  know,  and  when  yon 
don't  understand  a  thing,  ask — no  matter  how  small  and 
silly  it  may  look  to  other  people — ask,  and  after  that  you 
know.  A  man  never  is  in  a  state  of  mind  that  he  can 
learn  until  he  gets  that  dignified  nonsense  out  of  him,  and 
so  I  pay  let  us  treat  our  children  with  perfect  kindness  and 
tenderness. 

— I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  cannctgetthe  robe  of  hypoc 
risy  on  you  so  thick  that  the  sharp  eye  of  childhood  will 
not  see  through  every  veil,  and  if  you  pretend  to  your  chil 
dren  that  you  are  the  best  man  that  ever  lived — the  bravest 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  49 

man  that  ever  lived — they  will  find  you  out  every  time. 
They  will  not  have  the  same  opinion  of  father  when  they 
grow  up  that  they  used  to  have.  They  will  have  to  be  in 
mighty  bad  luck  if  they  ever  do  meaner  things  than  you 
have  done.  When  your  child  confesses  to  you  that  it  has 
committed  a  fault,  take  that  child  in  your  arms,  and  let  it 
feel  your  heart  beat  against  its  heart,  and  raise  your  chil 
dren  in  the  sunlight  of  love,  and  they  will  be  sunbeams  to 
you  along  the  pathway  of  life.  Abolish  the  club  and  the 
whip  from  the  house,  because,  if  the  civilized  use  a  whip, 
the  ignorant  arid  the  brutal  will  use  a  club,  and  they  will 
use  it  because  you  use  the  whip. 

— I  was  over  in  Michigan  the  other  day.  There  was  a  boy 
over  there  at  Grand  Rapids  about  five  or  six  years  old,  a 
nice,  smart  boy,  as  you  will  see  from  the  remark  he  made 
— what  you  might  call  a  nineteenth  century  boy.  His 
father  and  mother  had  promised  to  take  him  out  riding. 
They  had  promised  to  take  him  out  riding  for  about  three 
weeks,  and  they  would  slip  oft'  and  go  without  him.  Well, 
after  a  while  that  got  kind  of  played  out  with  the  little 
boy,  and  the  day  before  I  was  there  they  played  the  trick 
on  him  again.  They  went  out  and  got  the  carriage,  and 
went  away,  and  as  they  rode  away  from  the  front  of  the 
house,  he  happened  to  be  standing  there  with  his  nurse, 
and  he  saw  them.  The  .whole  thing  flashed  on  him  in  a 
moment.  He  took  in  the  situation,  and  turned  to  his  nurse 
and  said,  pointing  to  his  father  and  mother:  "There  goes 
the  two  biggest  liars  in  the  State  of  Michigan!"  When 
you  go  home  fill  the  house  with  joy,  so  that  the  light  of  it 
will  stream  out  the  windows  and  doors,  and  illuminate  even 
the  darkness.  It  is  just  as  easy  that  way  as  any  in  the 
world. 


5o  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

« 


Ingersoll's  Eloquent  Speech  to  the  Volunteer  Soldiers. 

At  the  banquet  given  to  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  at 
Chicago,  Nov.  13th  18  ,  Gen.  Sherman  announced  the 
following  toast :  "The  volunteer  soldiers  of  the  Union 
army,  whose  valor  and  patriotism  saved  the  world  a  gov 
ernment  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people." 
Response  by  Col.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll. 

Col.  Ingersoll,  mounting  the  table  by  which  he  was  sit 
ting,  spoke  as  follows  : 

"When  the  savagery  of  the  lash,  the  barbarism  of  the 
class,  and  the  insanity  of  secession  confronted  the  civiliza 
tion  of  our  century,  the  question,  "Will  the  great  republic 
defend  itself?"  trembled  on  the  lips  of  every  lover  of  man 
kind. 

The  North,  filled  with  intelligence  and  wealth — children 
of  liberty — marshalled  her  hosts  and  asked  only  for  a  leader. 
From  civil  life,  a  man,  silent,  thoughtful,  poised  and  calm, 
stepped  forth  and  with  lips  of  victory  voiced  the  nation's 
first  arid  last  demand:  "Unconditional  and  immediate 
surrender."  From  that  moment  the  end  was  known. 
That  utterance  was  the  first  real  declaration  of  war,  and,  in 
accordance  with  the  dramatic  unities  of  mighty  events,  the 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  5  I 

great  soldier  who  made  it  received  the  final  reward  of  the 
rebellion. 

The  soldiers  of  the  republic  were  not  seekers  after  vulgar 
glory.  They  were  not  animated  by  the  hope  of  plunder  or 
the  love  of  conquest.  They  fought  to  preserve  the  bless 
ings  of  liberty  and  that  their  children  might  have  peace. 
They  were  the  defenders  of  humanity,  the  destroyers  of 
prejudice,  the  breakers  of  chains,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
future  they  slew  the  monster  of  their  time.  They  finished 
what  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  commenced.  They  re 
lighted  the  torch  that  fell  from  their  august  hands  and  filled 
the  world  again  with  light.  They  blotted  from  the  sta'ute 
books  laws  that  had  been  passed  by  hypocrites  at  the  insti 
gation  of  robbers,  and  tore  with  indignant  hands  from  the 
Constitution  that  infamous  clause  that  made  men  the  catch 
ers  of  their  fellow  men. 

They  made  it  possible  for  judges  to  be  just,  for  states 
men  to  be  human,  and  for  politicians  to  be  honest. 

They  broke  the  shackles  from  the  limbs  of  slaves,  from 
the  souls  of  martyrs,  and  from  the  Northern  brain.  They 


kept  our  country  on  the  map  of  the  world  and  our  flag  in 
heaven. 

They  rolled  the  stone  from  the  sepulchre  of  progress, 
and  for  these  two  angels  clad  in  shining  garments — Nation 
ality  and  Liberty.  The  soldiers  were  the  saviors  of  the  na 
tion.  They  were  the  liberators  of  men.  In  writing  the 


52  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

proclamation  of  independence,  Lincoln,  the  greatest  of  our 
mighty  dead,  whose  memory  is  as  gentle  as  the  summer 
air  when  reapers  sing  amid  the  gathered  sheaves — copied 
with  the  pen  what  Grant  and  his  brave  comrades  wrote 
with  their  swords. 

Grander  than  the  Greek,  nobler  than  the  Roman,  the  sol 
diers  of  the  republic,  with  patriotism  as  taintless  as  the  air, 
battled  for  the  rights  of  others  ;  for  the  nobility  of  labor; 
f>»ught  that  mothers  miirht  own  their  babes;  that  arroirant 

GJ  O  t  o 

idleness  should  not  scar  the  back  of  patient  toil,  and  that 
our  country  should  not  be  a  many-headed  monster  made  of 
warring  States,  but  a  nation,  sovereign,  great  and  free. 

Blood  was  water,  money,  leaves,  and  life  was  common 
air  until  one  flag  floated  over  a  republic  without  a  master 
and  without  a  bluve.  Then  was  asked  the  question:  Will 
a  free  people  tax  themselves  to  pay  the  nation's  debt? 

The  soldiers  went  home  to  their  waiting  wives,  to  their 
glad  children,  and  to  the  girls  they  loved — they  went  back 
to  the  fields,  the  shops  and  mines.  They  had  not  been  de 
moralized.  They  had  been  ennobled.  They  were  as  hon 
est  in  peace  as  they  had  been  brave  in  war.  Mocking  at 
poverty,  laughing  at  reverses,  they  made  a  friend  of  toil. 
They  said  :  "We  saved  the  nation's  life,  and  what  is  life 
without  honor?"  They  worked  and  wrought  with  all  of 
labor's  sons,  that  every  pledge  the  nation  gave  should  be 
redeemed.  And  their  great  leader,  having  put  a  shining 
hand  of  friendship — a  girdle  of  clasped  and  happy  hands — 
around  the  globe,  comes  home  and  finds  that  every  promise 
made  in  war  has  now  the  ring  and  gleam  of  gold. 

There  is  still  another  question:  ''Will  all  the  wounds 
of  the  war  be  healed?"  I  answer,  Yes.  The  Southern  peo. 
pie  must  submit,  not  to  the  dictation  of  the  North,  but  to 
the  nation's  will  and  to  the  verdict  of  mankind.  They 
were  wrong,  aud  the  time  will  come  when  they  will  say 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  5j 

that  they  are  victors  who  have  been  vanquished  by  the 
right.  Freedom  conquered  them,  and  freedom  will  culti 
vate  their  fields,  educate  their  children,  weave  f  >rthem  the 
robes  of  wealth,  execute  their  laws,  and  fill  their  laud  with 
happy  homes. 

The  soldiers  of  the  Union  saved  the  South  as  well  as  the 
North.  They  made  us  a  Nation.  Their  victory  made  us 
free  and  rendered  tyranny  in  every  other  land  as  insecure 
as  snow  upon  volcano  lips. 

And  now  let  us  drink  to  the  volunteers,  to  those  who 
sleep  in  unknown,  sunken  griives,  whose  names  are  only  in 
the  hearts  of  those  they  loved  and  left — of  those  who  only 
hear  in  happy  dreams  the  footsteps  of  return. 

Let  us  drink  to  those  who  died  where  lipless  famine 
mocked  at  want — to  alt  the  maimed  whose  scars  give  mod 
esty  a  tongue,  to  all  who  dared  and  gave  to  chance  the 
care  and  keeping  of  their  lives — to  all  the  living  and  all  the 
dead — to  Sherman,  to  Sheridan  and  to  Grant,  the  foremost 
soldiers  of  the  world  ;  and  last,  to  Lincoln,  whose  loving 
life,  like  a  bow  of  peace,  spans  and  arches  all  the  clouds  of 
war." 


Honest  Money. 

I  am  next  in  favor  of  honest  money.  I  am  in  favor  of 
gold  and  silver,  and  paper  with  gold  and  silver  behind  it. 
I  believe  in  silver,  because  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
American  products,  and  I  am  in  favor  of  anything  that  will 
add  to  the  value  of  American  products.  tint  I  want  a  silver 
dollar  worth  a  gold  dollar,  even  if  you  make  it  or  have  to 
make  it  four  feet  in  diameter.  No  Government  can  afford 
to  be  a  clipper  of  coin.  A  great  Republic  cannot  afford  to 
stamp  a  lie  upon  silver  or  gold.  Honest  money,  an  honest 
people,  an  honest  Nation.  When  our  money  is  only  worth 


54  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

80  cents  on  the  dollar,  we  feel  20  per  cent,  below  par. 
When  onr  money  is  good  we  feel  good.  When  our  money 
is  at  par,  that  is  where  we  are.  I  am  a  profound  believer 
in  the  doctrine  that  for  nations,  as  well  as  men,  honesty  is 
the  best,  always,  everywhere  and  forever. 


Eloquent  Defense  of  Good  Government. 

We  all  want  a  good  Government.  If  we  do  not,  we 
should  havo  none.  We  all  want  to  live  in  a  land  where 
the  law  is  supreme.  We  desire  to  live  beneath  a  fl-ag  that 
will  protect  every  citizen  beneath  its  folds.  We  desire  to  be 
citizens  of  a  Government  so  great  and  so  grand  that  it  will 
command  the  respect" of  the  civilized  world. 

Most  of  us  are  convinced  that  our  Government  is  the  best 
Upon  this  earth. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  55 

It  is  the  only  Government  where  manhood,  and  manhood 
alone,  is  made  not  simply  a  condition  of  citizenship,  but 
where  manhood,  and  manhood  alone,  permits  its  possessor 
to  have  his  equal  share  in  the  control  of  the  Government. 

It  is  the  only  Government  where  poverty  is  upon  an  ex 
act  equality  with  wealth,  6O  far  as  controlling  the  destinies 
of  the  Republic  is  concerned. 

It  is  the  only  Nation  where  the  man  clothed  in  a  rag 
stands  upon  an  equality  with  the  one  wearing  purple. 

It  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  where,  politically,  the 
hut  is  upon  an  equality  with  the  palace. 

For  that  reason,  every  poor  man  should  stand  by  that 
Governmeat,  and  every  poor  man  who  does  not  is  a  traitor 
to  the  best  interests  of  his  children ;  every  poor  man  who 
does  not  is  willing  his  children  should  bear  the  badge  of 
political  inferiority;  and  the  only  way  to  make  this  Govern 
ment  a  complete  and  perfect  success  is  for  the  poorest  man 
to  think  as  much  of  his  manhood  as  the  millionaire  does  of 
his  wealth. 

A  man  does  not  vote  in  this  country  simply  because  he  is 
rich ;  he  does  not  vote  in  this  country  simply  because  he 
nas  an  education ;  he  does  not  vote  simply  because  he  has 
talent  or  genius;  we  say  that  he  votes  because  he  is  a  man, 
and  that  he  has  his  manhood  to  support;  and  we  admit  in 
this  country  that  nothing  can  be  more  valuable  to  any 
human  being  than  his  manhood,  and  for  that  reason  we  put 
poverty  on  an  equality  with  wealth. 

We  say  in  this  country  manhood  is  worth  more  than  gold. 
We  say  in  this  country  that  without  liberty  the  Nation  is 
not  worth  preserving.  I  appeal  to  every  laboring  man,  and 
I  ask  him,  Is  there  another  country  on  this  globe  where 
you  can  have  your  equal  rights  with  others?  Now,  then, 
in  every  country,  no  matter  how  good  it  is,  and  no  matter 
how  bad  it  is — in  every  country  there  is  something  worth 


56  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

preserving,  and  there  is  something  that  ought  to  be  de 
stroyed.  Now  recollect  that  every  voter  is  in  his  own  right 
a  king  ;  every  voter  in  this  country  wears  a  crown  ;  every 
voter  in  this  country  has  in  his  hands  the  scepter  of  authority; 
and  every  voter,  poor  and  rich,  wears  the  purple  of  author, 
ity  alike.  Recollect  it;  and  the  man  that  will  sell  his  vote 
!S  the  man  that  abdicates  the  American  throne. 

The  man  that  sells  his  vote  strips  himself  of  the  im 
perial  purple,  throws  away  the  scepter,  and  admits  that  he 
is  less  than  a  man.  More  than  that,  the  man  that  will  sell 
his  vote  for  prejudice  or  for  hatred,  the  man  that  will  be 
lied  out  of  his  vote,  that  will  be  slandered  out  of  his  vote, 
that  will  be  fooled  out  of  his  vote,  is  not  worthy  to  be  an 
American  citizen. 

Now  let  us  understand  ourselves.  Let  us  endeavor  to  do 
what  is  right ;  let  us  say  this  country  is  good — we  will  make 
it  better;  let  us  say  if  our  children  do  not  live  in  a  Republic 
it  shall  not  be  our  fault. 


A  Picture. 

The  other  night  I  happened  to  notice  a  sunset.  The  sun 
went  down,  and  the  west  was  full  of  light  and  fire,  and  I 
said:  "There  is  the  perfect  death  of  a  great  man;  that 
dying  sun  leaves  a  legacy  of  glory  to  the  very  clouds  that 
obstruct  its  path.  That  sun,  like  a  great  man,  dying,  leaves 
a  legacy  of  glory  even  to  the  ones  who  persecuted  him, 
and  the  world  is  glorious  only  because  there  have  been  men 
great  enough  and  grand  enough  to  die  for  the  right."  Will 
any  man,  can  any  man  ttffurd  to  die  for  this  country  ?  Then 
we  can  afford  to  vote  for  it.  If  a  man  can  afford  to  tight 
for  it  and  die  for  it,  I  can  afford  to  speak  for  it. 

And  now  I  beg  of  you,  every  man  and  woman,  no  mat 
ter  in  what  country  born, — if  you  are  an  Irishman,  recol- 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  5; 

lect  that  this  country  has  done  more  for  your  race  than  all 
other  countries  under  heavens ;  if  you  are  a  German,  recol 
lect  that  this  country  is  kinder  to  you  than  your  own  fath 
erland, — no  matter  what  country  you  came  from,  remem 
ber  that  this  country  is  an  asylum,  and  vote  as  in  your 
conscience  you  believe  you  ought  to  vote  to  keep  this  flag 
in  heaven.  I  beg  every  American  to  stand  with  that  part 
of  the  country  that  believes  in  law,  in  freedom  of  speech, 
in  an  honest  vote,  in  civilization,  in  progress,  in  human 
liberty,  and  in  universal  justice. 


Good  Dollars  and  Good  Times. 

If  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  leave  a  dollar  when  I  die, 
I  want  it  to  be  a  good  one  ;  I  don't  wish  to  have  it  turn  to 
ashes  in  the  hands  of  widowhood,  or  because  a  Democratic 
broken  promise  in  the  pocket  of  the  orphan ;  I  want  it 
money.  I  saw  not  long  ago  a  piece  of  gold  bearing  the 
stamp  of  the  Roman  Empire.  That  Empire  is  dust,  and 
over  it  has  been  thrown  the  mantle  of  oblivion,  but  that 
piece  of  gold  is  as  good  as  though  Julius  Caesar  were  still 
riding  at  the  head  of  the  Roman  Legion.  I  want  money 
that  will  outlive  the  Democratic  party.  They  told  us — 
and  they  were  honest  about  it — they  said,  ''when  we 
have  plenty  of  money,  we  are  prosperous."  And  I 
said:  "When  we  are  prosperous,  then  we  have  credit,  and, 
credit  ii.flates  the  currency.  Whenever  a  man  buys  a 
pound  of  sugar  and  says,  'Charge  it,'  he  inflates  the  cur 
rency ;  whenever  he  gives  hU  note,  he  inflates  the  curren 
cy;  whenever  his  word  takes  the  place  of  money,  lie 
inflates  the  currency."  The  consequence  is  that  when  we 
are  prosperous,  credit  takes  the  place  of  money,  and  we 
have  what  we  call  "  plenty."  But  you  can't  increase  pros 
perity  simply  by  using  promises  to  pay. 


58  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

Suppose  you  should  come  to  a  river  that  was  about  dry, 
and  there  you  would  see  the  ferryboat,  and  the  gentleman 
who  kept  the  ferry,  high  on  the  sand,  and  the  cracks  all 
opening  in  the  sun  filled  with  loose  oakum,  looking  like  an 
average  Democratic  mouth  listening  to  a  Constitutional 
argument,  and  you  should  say  to  him : 

"  How  is  business  ?" 

He  would  say  "  Dull." 

And  then  you  would  say  to  him,  "  Now,  what  you  want 
is  more  boat." 

He  would  probably  answer,  "If  I  had  a  little  more  wa 
ter  I  could  get  along  with  this  one." 


Ingersoll's  Apt  Words  on  State  Lines. 

In  old  times,  in  the  year  of  grace,  1860,  if  a  man  wished 
the  army  of  the  United  States  to  pursue  a  fugitive  slave, 
then  the  army  could  cross  a  State  line.  Whenever  it  has 
been  necessary  to  deprive  some  human  being  of  a  right, 
then  we  had  a  right  to  cross  State  lines  ;  but  whenever  we 
wished  to  strike  the  shackles  of  slavery  from  a  human  be 
ing  we  had  no  right  to  cross  a  State  line.  In  other  words, 
when  you  want  to  do  a  mean  thing  you  can  step  over  the 
line,  but  if  your  object  is  a  good  one  you  shall  not  do  it. 

This  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty  is  the  meanest  doctrine 
that  was  ever  lodged  in  the  American  mind.  It  is  political 
poison,  and  if  this  country  is  destroyed  that  doctrine  will 
have  done  as  much  toward  it  as  any  other  one  thing.  I  be 
lieve  the  Union  one  absolutely.  The  Democrat  tells  me 
that  when  I  am  away  from  home  the  Government  will  pro 
tect  me ;  but  when  I  am  home,  when  I  am  sitting  around 
the  family  fireside  of  the  nation,  then  the  Government  can 
not  protect  me ;  that  I  must  leave  if  I  want  protection. 
Now  I  denounce  that  doctrine.  For  instance,  we  are  at 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  5g 

war  with  another  country,  and  the  American  nation  comes 
to  me  and  says  :  ''We  want  you." 

I  say  :     'I  won't  go." 

They  draft  me,  put  some  names  in  a  wheel,  and  a  man 
turns  it  and  another  man  pulls  out  a  paper,  and  my  name 
is  on  it,  and  he  says  :  "Come."  So  I  go,  and  I  fight  for 
the  fiag.  When  the  war  is  over  I  go  back  to  my  State. 
Now  let  us  adm.  tv>flt  the  war  has  been  unpopular,  and 
that  when  I  got  to  the  State  the  people  of  that  State  wished 
to  trample  upon  my  rights,  and  I  cried  out  to  my  Govern 
ment  :  ''Come  and  defend  me  ;  you  made  me  defend  you." 
What  ought  the  Government  to  do  ? 

I  only  owe  that  Government  allegiance  that  owes  me  my 
protection.  Protection  is  the  other  side  of  the  bargain  ; 
that  is  what  it  must  be.  And  if  a  Government  ought  to 
protect  even  the  man  that  it  drafts,  what  ought  it  to  do  for 
the  volunteer,  the  man  who  holds  his  wife  for  a  moment  in 
a  tremulous  embrace,  and  kisses  his  children,  wets  their 
cheeks  with  his  tears,  shoulders  his  musket,  goes  to  the 
field,  and  says  :  "Here  I  am  to  uphold  my  flag."  A  na 
tion  that  will  not  protect  such  a  protector  is  a  disgrace  to 
mankind,  and  its  flag  a  dirty  rag  that  contaminates  the  air 
in  which  it  waves. 

I  believe  in  a  Government  with  an  arm  long  enough  to 
reach  the  collar  of  any  rascal  beneath  its  flag. 

I  want  it  with  an  arm  long  enough  and  a  sword  sharp 
enough  to  strike  down  tyranny  wherever  it  may  raise  its 
snaky  head. 

I  want  a  nation  that  can  hear  the  faintest  cries  of  its 
humblest  citizen. 

I  want  a  nation  that  will  protect  a  freedman  standing  in 
the  sun  by  his  little  cabin,  just  as  quick  as  it  would  protect 
Vanderbilt  in  a  palace  of  marWe  and  gold. 

I  believe  in  a  Government  that  can  cross  a  State  line  on  an 


60  COL.  INOERSOLL'S  WIT, 

errand  of  mercy.  I  believe  in  a  Government  that  can  cross 
a  State  line  when  it  wishes  to  do  justice.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  sword  turns  to  air  at  a  State  line.  I  want  a  Gov 
ernment  that  will  protect  me.  I  arn  here  (Kocktord,  III.,) 
to-day — do  I  stand  here  because  the  flasc  of  Illinois  is  above 
me  ?  I  want  no  flag  of  Illinois,  and  if  I  were  to  see  it  I 


should  not  know  it.  I  am  here  to-day  under  the  folds  of 
the  flag  of  my  country,  for  which  more  good,  blessed  blood 
has  been  shed  than  for  any  other  flag  that  waves  in  this 
world.  I  have  as  much  right  to  speak  here  as  if  I  had  been 
born  right  here. 

That  is  the  countrj*  in  which  I  believe  ;  that  is  the  nation 
that  commands  my  respect,  that  protects  all. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE. 


Ingersollisms. 

^  The  thoughts  of  a  man  who  is  not  free  are  not  worth 
inuta — uot  much. 

—  We  have  a  common  interest  in  the  preservation  of  a 
common  country. 

— I  believe  in  absolute  intellectual  liberty;  that  a  man 
has  a  right  to  think. 

— I  never  knew  a  man  who  did  a  decent  action  that 
wanted  it  forgotten. 

— It  will  be  thousands  of  years  before  the  world  will  be 
willing  to  say  that  right  makes  might. 

— I  hau  /ather  be  a  beggar  and  spend  my  last  dollar  like 


62  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

a  king  than  be  a  king  and  spend  my  money  like  a  beggar. 

— If  you  want  to  get  at  the  honest  thoughts  of  a  man  he 
must  be  free.  If  he  is  not  free  you  will  not  get  his  honest 
thought. 

— Whenever  a  man  does  what  mantles  the  cheeks  of  his 
children  with  shame,  he  is  the  man  who  says,  "Let  by 
gones  be  by-gones." 

— The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  the  first 
decree  entered  in  the  high  court  of  a  nation  forever  divorc 
ing  Church  and  State. 

— Printing  gave  pinions  to  thought  and  made  it  possible 
for  man  to  bequ-'ath  to  the  future  the  richness  of  his  brain, 
the  wealth  of  his  soul. 

— I  believe  another  thing.  If  I  belong  to  the  superior 
race  I  will  be  so  superior  that  I  can  make  my  living  without 
stealing  from  the  inferior. 

— We  used  to  worship  the  golden  calf,  and  the  worst  you 
can  say  of  us  now,  is,  we  worship  the  gold  of  the  calf,  and 
even  the  calves  are  beginning  to  see  this  distinction. 

— Education  is  the  most  radical  thing  in  the  world.  To 
teach  the  alphabet  is  to  inaugurate  a  revolution.  To  build 
a  school  house  is  to  construct  a  fort.  A  library  is  an  arsenal. 

— I  say  here  that  I  think  a  hundred  times  more  of  the 
good,  honest,  black,  industrious  man  of  the  South  than  I 
do  of  all  the  white  men  together  that  don't  love  the 
government. 

— In  the  long  run  the  nation  that  is  honest,  the  people 
that  are  industrious,  will  pass  the  people  that  are  dishonest, 
the  people  that  are  idle ;  no  matter  what  grand  ancestry 
they  may  have  had. 

— I  believe  that  every  round  in  the  ladder  of  fame,  from 
the  one  that  rests  on  the  ground  to  the  last  one  that  leans 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  63 

against  the  shining  summit  of  human  ambition,  belongs  to 
the  foot  that  gets  on  it. 

— Every  man  who  has  invented  anything  for  the  use  and 
convenience  of  man  has  helped  raise  his  fellow  man. 

— Yon  should  keep  your  minds  open  to  reason ;  hear 
what  a  man  has  to  say,  and  do  not  let  the  turtle-shell  of 
bigotry  grow  above  your  brain.  Give  everybody  a  chance 
and  an  opportunity  ;  that  is  all. 

— If  some  men  were  as  ashamed  of  appearing  cross  in 
public  as  they  are  of  appearing  tender  at  home,  this  world 
would  be  infinitely  better.  I  think  you  can  make  your 
home  a  heaven  if  you  want  to — you  can  make  up  your 
minds  to  that. 

— I  believe  if  you  have  got  a  dollar  in  the  world  and  you 
have  got  to  spend  it,  spend  it  like  a  man  ;  spend  it  like  a 
king,  like  a  prince.  If  you  have  to  sperd  it,  spend  it  as 
though  it  was  a  dried  leaf,  and  you  were  the  owner  of  un* 
bounded  forests. 

— The  last  Napoleon  was  not  satisfied  with  being  Emperor 
of  the  French ;  he  was  not  satisfied  with  having  a  circlet 
of  gold  about  his  head  ;  he  wanted  some  one  evidence  that 
he  had  something  within  his  head,  so  he  wrote  the  life  of 
Julius  Csesar,  that  he  might  become  a  member  of  the  French 
academy. 

— In  every  age  some  men  carried  the  torch  of  progress 
and  handed  it  to  some  other,  and  it  has  been  carried  through 
all  the  dark  ages  of  barbarism,  and  had  it  not  been  for  such 
men  we  would  have  been  naked  and  uncivilized  to-night, 
with  pictures  of  wild  beasts  tattooed  on  our  skins,  dancing 
around  some  dried  snake  fetish. 

— The  more  a  man  knows  the  more  liberal  he  is ;  the  less 
a  man  knows  the  more  bigoted  he  is.  The  less  a  man 


64  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

knows  the  more  certain  he  is  that  he  knows  it,  and  the  more 
a  man  knows  the  better  satisfied  lie  is  that  he  is  entirely 
ignorant.  Great  knowledge  is  philosophic,  and  little,  nar 
row,  contemptible  knowledge  is  bigoted  and  hateful. 

— I  have  sometimes  wished  that  there  were  words  of  pure 
hatred  out  of  which  I  might  construct  sentences  like  snakes, 
out  of  which  I  might  construct  sentences  with  mouths 
fanged,  that  had  forked  tongues,  out  of  which  I  might  con 
struct  sentences  that  writhed  and  hissed  ;  then  I  could  give 
my  opinion  of  the  rebels  during  the  great  struggle  for  the 
preservation  of  this  nation. 

— The  grave  is  not  a  throne,  and  a  corpse  is  not  a  king. 
The  living  have  a  right  to  control  this  world.  I  think  a 
good  deal  more  of  to-day  than  I  do  of  yesterday,  and  I 
think  more  of  to-morrow  than  I  do  of  this  day ;  because, 
it  is  nearly  gone — that  is  the  way  I  feel.  The  time  to  be 
happy  is  now ;  the  way  to  be  happy  is  to  make  somebody 
else  happy  and  the  place  to  be  happy  is  here. 

— It  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich,  nor  powerful,  nor  great 
to  be  a  success ;  and  neither  is  it  necessary  to  have  your 
name  between  the  putrid  lips  of  rumor  to  be  great.  We 
have  had  a  false  standard  of  success.  In  the  years  when  I 
was  a  little  boy  we  read  in  our  books  that  no  fellow  was  a 
success  that  did  not  make  a  fortune  or  get  a  big  office,  and 
he  generally  was  a  man  that  slept  about  three  hours  a  night. 
They  never  put  down  in  the  books  the  names  of  those  gen 
tlemen  that  succeeded  in  life  that  slept  all  they  wanted  to ; 
and  we  all  thought  that  we  could  not  sleep  to  exceed  three 
or  four  hours  if  we  ever  expected  to  be  anything  in  this 
•world.  We  have  had  a  wrong  standard. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  65 

The  Celebrated  Speech  of  Col.  Ingersoll  Nominating 
James  G.  Elaine  for  President. 

At  Cincinnati,  June,  1876,  in  nominating  James  G. 
Elaine  tor  President,  Col.  Ingersoll  spoke  as  follows:  (full 
report.) 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  Massachu 
setts  may  be  satisfied  with  the  loyalty  of  Benjamin  II. 
Bristow  ;  so  am  I ;  but  if  any  man  nominated  by  this  con 
vention  cannot  carry  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  the  loyalty  of  that  State.  If  the  nominee  of 
this  convention  cannot  carry  the  grand  old  commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts  by  seventy-five  thousand  majority  I  would 
advise  them  to  sell  out  Faneuil  Hall  as  a  Democratic  head 
quarters.  I  would  advise  them  to  take  from  Bunker  Hill 
that  old  monument  of  glory. 

The  Republicans  of  the  United  States  demand  as  their 
leader  in  the  great  contest  of  1876,  a  man  of  intelligence,  a 
man  of  integrity,  a  man  of  well-known  and  approved  politi 
cal  opinions.  They  demand  a  statesman  ;  they  demand  a 
reformer  after  as  well  as  before  the  election.  They  de 
mand  a  politician  in  the  highest,  broadest  and  best  sense — 
a  man  of  superb  moral  courage.  They  demand  a  man  ac 
quainted  with  public  affairs  ;  with  the  wants  of  the  people  ; 
with  not  only  the  requirements  of  the  hour,  but  with  the 
demands  of  the  future. 

They  demand  a  man  broad  enough  to  comprehend  the 
relations  of  this  Government  to  the  other  nations  of  the 
earth.  They  demand  a  man  well  versed  in  the  powers, 
duties  and  prerogatives  of  each  and  every  department  of 
this  Government.  They  demand  a  man  who  will  sacredly 
preserve  the  financial  honor  of  the  United  States  ;  one  who 
knows  enough  to  know  that  the  national  debt  must  be  paid 
through  the  prosperity  of  the  people  ;  one  who  knows 
enough  t  >  know  that  ail  the  financial  theories  in  the  world 


66  COL.  INGEKSOLL'S  WIT, 

cannot  redeem  a  single  dollar ;  one  who  knows  enough  to 
know  that  all  the  money  must  be  made,  not  by  law  but  by 
labor ;  one  who  knows  enough  to  know  that  the  people  of 
the  United  States  have  the  industry  to  make  the  money, 
and  the  honor  to  pay  it  over  just  as  fast  as  they  make  it. 

The  Republicans  of  the  United  States  demand  a  man 
who  knows  that  prosperity  and  resumption,  when  they 
come,  must  come  together  ;  that  when  they  come  they  will 
come  hand  in  hand  through  the  golden  harvest  fields ; 
hand  in  hand  by  the  whirling  spindles  and  the  turning 
wheels;  hand  in  hand  past  the  open  furnace  doors;  hand 
in  hand  by  the  chimneys  filled  with  eager  tire,  greeted  and 
grasped  by  the  countless  sons  of  toil. 

This  money  has  to  be  dug  out  of  the  earth.  You  cannot 
make  it  by  passing  resolutions  in  a  political  convention. 

The  Republicans  of  the  United  States  want  a  man  who 
knows  that  this  Government  should  protect  every  citizen, 
at  home  and  abroad  ;  who  knows  that  any  Government 
that  will  not  defend  its  defenders  and  protect  its  protectors, 
is  a  disgrace  to  the  map  of  the  world.  They  demand  a 
man  who  believes  in  the  eternal  separation  and  divorce 
ment  of  church  and  school.  They  demand  a  man  whose 
political  reputation  is  as  spotless  as  a  star  ;  but  they  do  not 
demand  that  their  candidate  shall  have  a  certificate  of 
moral  character  signed  by  a  Confederate  Congress.  The 
man  who  has,  in  full,  heaped  and  rounded  measure,  all 
these  splendid  qualifications  is  the  present  grand  and  gal 
lant  leader  of  the  Republican  party — James  G.  Elaine. 

Our  country,  crowned  with  the  vast  and  marvelous 
achievements  of  its  first  century,  asks  for  a  man  worthy  of 
the  past  and  prophetic  of  her  future ;  asks  for  a  man  who 
has  the  audacity  of  genius  ;  asks  for  a  man  who  is  the  grand 
est  combination  of  heart,  conscience  and  brain  beneath  hei 
flag.  Such  a  man  is  James  G.  JJlaine. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  6/ 

For  the  Republican  host,  led  by  this  intrepid  man,  there 
can  be  no  defeat. 

This  is  a  grand  year — a  year  filled  with  recollections  of 
the  Revolution  ;  filled  with  the  proud  and  tender  memories 
of  the  past;  with  the  sacred  legends  of  liberty  ;  a  year  in 
which  the  sons  of  freedom  will  drink  from  the  fountains  of 
enthusiasm  ;  a  year  in  which  the  people  call  for  a  man  who 
has  preserved  in  Congress  what  our  soldiers  won  upon  the 
field  ;  a  year  in  which  they  call  for  the  man  who  has  torn 
from  the  throat  of  treason  the  tongue  of  slander — for  the 
man  who  has  snatched  the  mask  of  Democracy  from  the 
hideous  face  of  rebellion  ;  for  this  man  who,  like  an  intel 
lectual  athlete,  has  stood  in  the  arena  of  debate  and  chal 
lenged  all  comers,  and  who  is  still  a  total  stranger  to  de 
feat. 

Like  an  armed  warrior,  like  a  plumed  knight,  James  G. 
Elaine  marched  down  the  halls  of  the  American  Congress 
and  threw  his  shining  lance  full  and  fair  against  the  brazen 
foreheads  of  the  defamers  of  his  country  and  the  maligners 
of  her  honor.  For  the  Republican  party  to  desert  this  gal 
lant  leader  now  is  as  though  an  army  should  desert  their 
Goii'T;,!  nr<>n  the  field  of  battle. 

James  G.  J31ai;  e  is  now  and  has  been  for  years  the 
bearer  or'  the  sacred  standard  of  the  Republican  party.  I 
call  it  sacred  because  no  human  being  can  stand  beneath 
its  folds  without  becoming  and  without  remaining  free. 

Gentlemen  of  the  convention,  in  the  name  of  the  great 
Republic,  the  only  Republic  that  ever  existed  upon  tiiis 
earth  ;  in  the  name  of  all  her  defenders  and  of  all  her  sup 
porters  ;  in  the  name  of  all  her  soldiers  living ;  in  the 
name  of  all  her  soldiers  dead  upon  the  field  of  battle,  and 
in  the  name  of  those  who  perished  in  the  skeleton  clutch  of 
famine  at  Andersonville  and  Libbj7,  whose  sufferings  he  so 
vividly  remembers,  Illinois — Illinois  nominates  fur  the  next 


68 


COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 


President  of  this  country  that  prince  of  parliamentarians — 
that  leader  of  leaders — James  G.  Elaine. 


A  Country  Full  of  Kings. 

I  want  the  power  where  somebody  can  use  it.  As  long 
as  a  man  is  responsible  to  the  people  there  is  no  fear  of  des 
potism.  There's  no  reigning  family  in  this  country.  We 
are  all  of  us  Kings.  We  are  the  reigning  family.  And 
when  any  man  talks  about  despotism,  you  may  be  sure  he 
wants  to  steal  or  be  up  to  devilment.  If  we  have  any  sense, 
we  have  got  to  have  localization  of  brain.  If  we  have  any 
power,  we  must  have  centralization.  We  want  centraliza 
tion  of  the  ri<iht  kind.  The  man  we  choose  ibr  our  head 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  69 

wants  the  army  in  one  hand  and  the  navy  in  the  other,  and 
to  execute  the  supreme  will  of  the  supreme  people. 

But  you  say  you  will  cross  a  State,  line.  I  hope  so. 
When  the  Democratic  party  was  in  power  and  wanted  to 
pursue  a  human  slave,  there  was  no  State  line.  When  we 
want  to  save  a  human  being,  the  State  line  rises  up  like  a 
Chirese  wall.  I  believe  when  one  party  can  cross  a  State 
line  to  put  a  chain  on,  another  party  can  cross  it  to  take  a 
chain  off.  "  Why,"  you  say,  "you  want  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  a  State."  Yes,  I 
do,  if  necessary.  I  want  the  ear  of  the  Government  acute 
enough  and  arm  long  enough  to  reach  a  wronged  man  in 
any  State.  A  government  that  will  not  protect  its  pro 
tectors  is  no  government.  Its  flag  is  a  dirty  rag.  That  is 
not  my  government.  I  want  a  government  that  will  pro 
tect  its  citizens  at  home.  The  Democratic  doctrine  is  that 
a  government  can  only  protect  its  citizens  abroad.  If  a 
father  can't  protect  his  children  at  home,  depend  upon  it, 
that  he  can't  do  much  for  them  when  they  are  abroad. 

Think  of  it !  Here's  a  war.  They  come  to  me  in  Illinois 
and  draft  me.  They  tell  me  I  must  go.  I  go  through  the 
war  and  come  home  safe.  Afterwards  that  State  finds  a 
way  to  trample  on  me.  I  say  to  the  Federal  Government, 
u  You  told  me  I  owed  my  first  allegiance  to  you,  and  I  had 
to  go  to  war.  Now,  I  say  to  you,  You  owe  your  first  alle 
giance  to  me,  and  I  want  you  to  protect  me! 

The  Federal  Government  says,  "Oh,  you  must  ask  your 
State  to  request  it." 

I  say,  "That's  just  what  they  won't  .do  !"  '  Such  a  con 
dition  of  things  is  perfectly  horrible! 

If  so  with  a  man  who  was  drafted,  what  will  you  say  of 
a  volunteer  ?  Yet  that's  the  Democratic  doctrine  of  Federal 
Government.  It  won't  do  !  And  vou  know  it! 


7o  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

Some  Laughable  Remarks  About  Money  With  a  Few 
Illustrations. 

They  say  that  money  is  a  measure  of  value.  'Tisn't  so. 
A  bushel  doesn't  measure  values.  It  measures  diamonds 
as  well  as  potatoes.  If  it  measured  values,  a  bushel  of 
potatoes  would  be  worth  as  much  as  a  bushel  of  diamonds. 
A  yard-stick  doesn't  measure  values.  They  used  to  say, 
u  there's  no  use  in  having  a  gold  yard-stick."  That  was 
right.  You  don't  buy  the  yard-stick.  If  money  bore  the 
same  relation  to  trade  as  a  yard-stick  or  half- bushel,  you 
would  have  the  same  money  when  you  got  through  trading 
as  you  had  when  you  begun.  A  man  don't  sell  half-bush 
els.  He  sells  corn.  All  we  want  is  a  little  sense  about 
these  things. 

I  don't  blame  the  man  wno  wanted  inflation.  I  don't 
blame  him  for  praying  for  another  period  of  inflation. 
<;  When  it  comes,"  said  the  man  who  had  a  lot  of  shrunk 
en  property  on  his  hands,  "blame  me,  if  I  don't  unload, 
you  may  shoot  me."  It's  a  good  deal  like  the  game  of 
poker  !  I  don't  suppose  any  of  you  know  anything  about 
that  game !  Along  towards  morning  the  fellow  who  is 
ahead  always  wants  another  deal.  The  fellow  that  is  he- 
hind  says  his  wife's  sick,  and  he  must  go  hcme.  You 
ought  to  hear  that  fellow  descant  on  domestic  virtue  !  And 
the  other  fellow  accuses  him  of  being  a  coward  and  want 
ing  to  jump  the  game.  A  man  whose  dead  wood  is  hung 
up  on  the  shore  in  a  dry  time,  wants  the  water  to  rise  once 
more  and  float  it  out  into  the  middle  of  the  stream. 

We  were  in  trouble.  The  thing  was  discussed.  Some 
said  there  wasn't  enough  money.  That's  so  ;  I  know  what 
that  means  myself.  They  said  if  we  had  more  money  we'd 
be  more  prosperous.  The  truth  is,  if  we  were  more  pros 
perous  we'd  have  more  money.  They  said  more  money 
would  facilitate  business. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  7  I 

Suppose  a  shareholder  in  a  railroad  that  had  earned 
$18,01)0  the  past  year  should  look  over  the  books  and  find 
that  in  that  year  the  railroad  had  used  $12,000  worth  of 
grease.  The  next  year,  suppose  the  earnings  should  fall 
off  $5,000,  and  the  man,  in  looking  over  the  accounts, 
should  learn  that  in  that  year  the  road  hr.d  used  only  $500 
worth  of  grease!  Supposing  the  man  should  say:  "The 
trouble  is,  we  want  more  grease."  What  would  you  think 
of  a  man  if  he  discharged  the  superintendent  for  not  using 
more  grease  ? 

I  said,  years  ago,  that  resumption  would  come  only  by 
prosperity,  and  the  only  way  to  pay  debts  was  by  labor. 
I  knew  that  every  man  who  raised  a  bushel  of  corn  helped 
resumption.  It  was  a  question  of  crops,  a  question  of  in 
dustry. 


An  Amusing  Story. 

ou  Greenbackers  are  like  the  old  woman  in  the  Tewks- 
bury,  Mass.,  Poor-House.  She  used  to  be  well  off,  and 
didn't  like  her  quarters.  You  Greenbackers  have  left  your 
father's  house  of  many  mansions  and  have  fed  on  shucks 
about  long  enough.  The  Supervisor  came  into  the  Poor- 
House  one  day  and  asked  the  old  lady  how  she  liked  it. 
She  said  she  didn't  like  the  company,  and  asked  him  what 
he  would  advise  her  to  do  under  similar  circumstances. 

"  Oh,  you'd  better  stay.      You're  prejudiced,"  said  he. 

"  Do  you  think  anybody  is  ever  prejudiced  in  their  sleep?" 
asked  the  old  lady.  "I -had  a  dream  the  other  night.  I 
dreamed  I  died  arid  went  to  Heaven.  Lots  of  nice  people 
were  there.  A  nice  man  came  to  me  and  asked  me  where 
I  was  from.  Says  I,  'From  Tewksbury,  Mass.' 

He  looked  in  his  book  and  said,  "You  can't  stay  here." 


72  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

•'I  asked  what  he  would  advise  ine  to  do  under  similar 
circumstances. 

<kkWell,'  he  said,  'there's  Hell  down  there,  you  might 
try  that.' 

u  Well,  I  went  down  there,  and  the  man  told  me  my 
name  wasn't  on  the  book  and  I  couldn't  stay  there.  'Well,' 
said  J,  "  What  would  you  advise  me  to  do  under  similar 
circumstances? ' 

"Said  he,  '  You'll  have  to  go  back  to  Tewksbury." 

And  when  Greenb;ickers  remember  what  they  once  were, 
yon  must  feel  now,  when  you  were  iorced  to  join  the  Demo 
cratic  part}7,  as  bad  as  the  old  lady  who  had  to  go  back  to 
Tewksbury. 


Money  and  Yardsticks. 

A  thousand  theories  were  born  of  want ;  a  thousand  the 
ories  were  born  of  the  fertile  brain  of  trouble ;  and  these 
people  said  after  all :  "What  is  money?  why  it  is  nothing 
but  a  measure  of  value,  just  the  same  as  a  half-bushel  or 
yardstick."  True.  And  consequently  it  makes  no  differ 
ence  whether  your  half-bushel  is  of  wood,  or  gold,  or  sil 
ver,  or  paper;  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether  your 
yardstick  is  gold  or  paper.  But  the  trouble  about  that 
statement  is  this :  A  half-bushel  is  not  a  measure  of  value; 
it  is  a  measure  of  quantity,  and  it  measures  rubies,  dia 
monds  and  pearls,  precisely  the  same  as  corn  and  wheat. 
The  yardstick  is  not  a  measure  of  value ;  it  is  a  measure  of 
length,  and  it  measures  lace,  worth  $100  a  yard,  precisely 
as  it  does  cent  tape.  And  another  reason  why  it  makes  no 
difference  to  the  purchaser  whether  the  half-bushel  is  gold 
or  silver,  or  whether  the  yardstick  is  gold  or  paper,  you 
don't  buy  the  yardstick;  you  don't  get  the  half-bushel  in 
the  trade.  And  if  it  was  so  with  money — if  the  people 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  73 

that  had  the  money  at  the  start  of  the  trade,  kept  it  after 
the  consummation  of  the  bargain — then  it  wouldn't  make 
any  difference  what  you  made  your  money  of.  But  the 
trouble  is,  the  money  changes  hands.  And  let  me  say  right 
here,  money  is  a  thing — it  is  a  product  of  nature-—  and  you 
can  no  more  make  a  "fiat"  dollar  than  you  can  make  a  fiat 
star. 


Bright  Money. 

Now  listen  :  No  civilized  nation,  no  barbarous  nation, 
no  tribe,  however  ignorant,  ever  used  anything  as  money 
that  man  could  make.  They  had  always  used  for  money 
a  production  of  nature.  Some  may  say,  "Have  not  some 
uncivilized  tribes  used  beads  fur  money,  something  that 
civilized  people  could  make?"  Yes,  but  a  savage  tribe 
could  not  make  the  beads.  The  savage  tribes  supposed 
them  to  be  a  product  either  of  nature  or  of  something  else 
that  they  could  not  imitate. 

Nothing  has  ever  been  considered  money  among  any 
people  on  this  globe  that  those  people  could  make.  What 
is  a  greenback  ?  The  greenbacks  are  a  promise,  not  money. 
The  greenbacks  are  the  nation's  note,  not  money.  You 
cannot  make  a  fiat  dollar  any  more  than  you  can  make  a 
fiat  store.  You  can  make  a  promise,  and  that  promise 
may  be  made  by  such  a  splendid  man  that  it  will  pass 
among  all  who  know  him  as  a  dollar ;  but  it  is  not  a  dollar. 
You  might  as  well  tell  me  that  a  bill  of  fare  is  a  dinner. 
The  greenback  is  only  good  now  because  you  can  get  gold 
for  it.  If  you  could  not  get  gold  for  it  it  would  not  be 
worth  any  more  than  a  ticket  for  dinner  after  the  fellow 
who  issued  the  ticket  had  quit  keeping  the  hotel.  A  dollar 
must  be  made  of  something  that  nature  has  produced. 

When  1  die,  if  I  have  a  dollar  left  I  want  it  to  be  a  good 


74  COL.  INGERSOLL  S  WIT, 

one.  I  do  not  want  a  dollar  that  will  turn  into  ashes  in  the 
hand  of  widowhood  or  in  the  possession  of  an  orphan.  Take 
a  coin  of  the  Roman  empire — a  little  piece  of  gold — and  it 
is  just  as  good  to-day  as  though  Julius  Csesar  still  stood  at. 
the  head  of  the  Roman  legions.  I  do  not  wish  to  trust  the 
wealth  of  this  nation  with  the  demagogs  of  the  nation.  I 
do  not  wish  to  trust  the  wealth  of  the  country  to  every 
blast  of  public  opinion.  I  want  money  as  solid  as  the  earth 
on  which  we  tread,  as  bright  as  the  stars  that  shine  above  us. 


A  Panic  Picture. 

No  man  can  imagine,  all  the  languages  of  the  world  can 
not  express  what  the  people  of  the  United  States  suffered 
from  1873  to  1879.  Men  who  considered  themselves  mil 
lionaires  found  that  they  were  beggars ;  men  living  in  pal 
aces,  supposing  they  had  enough  to  give  sunshine  to  the 
winter  of  their  age,  supposing  they  had  enough  to  have  all 
they  loved  in  affluence  and  comfort,  suddenly  found  that 
they  were  mendicants  with  bonds,  stocks,  mortgages,  all 
turned  to  ashes  in  their  aged,  trembling  hands.  The  chim 
neys  grew  cold,  the  fires  in  furnaces  went  out,  the  poor 
families  were  turned  adrift,  and  the  highways  of  the  United 
States  were  crowded  with  tramps.  Into  the  home  of  the 
poor  crept  the  serpent  of  temptation,  and  whispered  in  the 
?ar  of  poverty  the  terrible  word  "repudiation." 

I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  cannot  conceive  of  what  the 
American  people  suffered  as  they  staggered  over  the  desert 
of  bankruptcy  from  1873  to  1879.  We  are  too  near  now  to 
know  how  grand  we  were.  The  poor  mechanics  said 
"No;"  the  ruined  manufacturer  said  "No  ;"  the  once  mil 
lionaire  said  "No,  we  will  settle  fair ;  we  will  agree  to  pay 
whether  we  ever  pay  or  not,  and  we  will  never  soil  the 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  75 

American  name  with  the  infamous  word,  'repudiation.'" 
Are  you  not  glad  ?  What  is  the  talk  ?  Are  you  not  glad 
that  our  flag  is  covered  all  over  with  financial  honors  ?  The 
stars  shine  and  gleam  now  because  they  represent  an  lion' 
est  nation. 


Repudiation. 

I  think  there  is  the  greatest  heroism  in  living  for  a  thing ! 
There's  no  glory  in  digging  potatoes.  You  don't  wear  a 
uniform  when  you're  picking  up  stones.  You  can't  have  a 
band  of  music  when  you  dig  potatoes !  In  1873  came  the 
great  crash.  We  staggered  over  the  desert  of  bankruptcy. 
No  one  can  estimate  the  anguish  of  that  time.  Millionaires 
found  themselves  paupers.  Palaces  were  exchanged  for 
hovels.  The  aged  man,  who  had  spent  his  life  in  hard 
labor,  and  who  thought  he  had  accumulated  enough  to  sup 
port  himself  in  his  old  age,  and  leave  a  little  something  to 
his  children  and  grandchildren,  found  they  were  all  beggars. 
The  highways  were  filled  with  tramps. 

Then  it  was  that  the  serpent  of  temptation  whispered  in 
the  ear  of  want  that  dreadful  word  "Eepudiation."  -An 
effort  was  made  to  repudiate.  They  appealed  to  want,  to 
misery,  to  threatened  financial  ruin,  to  the  bare  hearth 
stones,  to  the  army  of  beggars.  We  had  grandeur  enough 
to  say:  "No;  we'll  settle  fair  if  we  don't  pay  a  cent!" 
And  we'll  pay  it.  'Twas  grandeur!  Is  there  a  Democrat 
now  who  wishes  we  had  taken  the  advice  of  Bayard  to 
scale  the  bonds?  Is  there  an  American,  a  Democrat  here, 
who  is  not  glad  we  escaped  the  stench  and  shame  of  repu 
diation,  and  did  not  take  Democratic  advice?  Is  there  a 
Greenbacker  here  who  is  not  glad  WP.  didn't  do  it?  He 
may  say  he  is,  but  he  isn't.  We  then  had  to  pay  7  per 
cent,  interest  on  our  bonds.  Now  we  only  pay  4.  Our 


76  COL.  INGERSOI.L'S  WIT. 

greenbacks  were  then  at  10  per  cent,  discount.  Now  they 
are  at  pnr.  How  would  an  American  feel  to  be  in  Ger 
many  or  France  and  hear  it  said  that  the  United  States  re 
pudiated  ?  We  have  found  out  that  money  is  something 
that  can't  be  made.  We  have  found  out  that  money  is  a 
product  of  Nature.  When  a  nation  gets  hard  up,  it  is 
right  and  proper  for  it  to  give  its  notes,  and  it  should  pay 
them.  We  have  found  out  that  it  is  better  to  trust  lor 
payment  to  the  miserly  cleft  of  the  rocks  than  to  any  Con 
gress  blown  about  by  the  wind  of  demagogs.  We  want 
our  money  good  in  any  civilized  nation.  Yes,  we  want  it 
good  in  Central  Africa!  And  when  a  naked  Hottentot 
sees  a  United  States  greenback  blown  about  by  the  wind, 
he  will  pick  it  up  as  eagerly  as  if  it  was  a  lump  of  gold. 
They  say  even  now  that  money  is  a  device  to  facilitate  ex. 
changes.  'Tisn't  so  !  Gold  is  not  a  device.  Silver  is  not 
a  device.  You  might  as  well  attempt  to  make  fiat  suns, 
moons,  and  stars  as  a  fiat  dollar. 


Protection. 

There  is  another  thing  in  which  I  believe.  I  believe  in 
the  protection  of  American  labor.  The  hand  that  holds 
Aladdin's  lamp  must  be  the  hand  of  toil.  This  nation 
rests  upon  the  shoulders  of  its  workers,  and  I  want  the 
American  .aboring  man  to  have  enough  to  wear.  I  waut 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  77 

him  to  have  enough  to  eat.  I  want  him  to  have  something 
for  the  ordinary  misfortunes  of  life.  I  want  him  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  wife  well  dressed.  I  want  him 
to  see  a  few  blue  ribbons  fluttering  about  his  children.  I 
want  him  to  see  the  flags  of  health  flying  in  their  beautiful 
cheeks.  I  want  him  to  feel  that  this  is  his  country,  and 
the  shield  of  protection  is  above  his  labor. 

And  I  will  tell  you  why  I  am  for  protection,  too.  If  we 
were  all  farmers  we  would  be  stupid.  If  we  were  all  shoe 
makers  we  would  be  stupid.  If  we  all  followed  one  busi" 
ness,  no  matter  what  it  was,  we  wonld  become  stupid. 
Protection  to  American  labor  diversifies  American  indus 
try,  and  to  have  it  diversified  touches  and  developes  every 
part  of  the  human  brain.  Protection  protects  integrity  ;  it 
protects  intelligence ;  and  protection  raises  sense;  and  by 
protection  we  have  greater  men  and  better-looking  women 
and  healthier  children.  Free  trade  means  that  our  laborer 
is  upon  an  equality  with  the  poorest  paid  labor  of  this 
world. 


The  Tariff. 

Where  did  this  doctrine  of  a  tariff  for  revenue  only  come 
from  ?  From  the  South.  The  South  would  like  to  stab 
the  prosperity  of  the  North.  They  had  rather  trade  with 
Old  England  than  with  New  England.  They  had  rather 
trade  with  the  people  who  were  willing  to  help  them  in  war 
than  those  who  conquered  the  rebellion.  They  knew  what 
gave  us  our  strength  in  war.  They  knew  that  all  the 
brooks  and  creeks  and  rivers  in  New  England  were  putting 
down  the  rebellion.  They  knew  that  every  wheel  that 
turned,  every  spindle  that  revolved,  was  a  soldier  in  the 
army  of  human  progress.  It  won't  do.  They  were  so 
lured  by  the  greed  ot  office  that  they  were  willing  to  trade 


78  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

upon  the  misfortunes  of  a  nation.  It  won't  do.  I  don't 
wish  to  belong  to  a  party  that  succeeds  only  when  rny  coun 
try  falls.  I  .don't  wish  to  belong  to  a  party  whose  banner 
went  up  with  the  banner  of  rebellion.  I  don't  wish  to  be 
long  to  a  party  that  was  in  partnership  with  defeat  and  dis 
aster.  I  don't.  And  there  isn't  a  Democrat  here  but  what 
knows  that  a  failure  of  the  crops  this  year  would  have 
helped  his  party.  You  know  that  an  early  frost  would 
have  been  a  godsend  to  them.  You  know  that  the  potato- 
bug  could  have  done  them  more  good  than  all  their  speak 
ers. 


Ingersoll's  History  of  State  Sovereignty. 

This  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty  has  to  be  done  away 
with ;  we  have  got  to  stamp  it  out.  Let  me  tell  you  its 
history :  The  first  time  it  ever  appeared  was  when  they 
wished  to  keep  the  slave  trade  alive  until  1808.  The  first 
resort  to  this  doctrine  was  for  the  protection  of  piracy  and 
murder,  and  the  next  time  they  appealed  to  it  was  to  keep 
the  inter-state  slave  trade  alive,  so  that  a  man  in  Virginia 
could  sell  the  very  woman  that  nursed  him,  to  the  rice  fields  of 
the  South.  It  was  done  so  they  could  raise  mankind  as  a 
crop.  It  was  a  crop  th.it  they  could  thresh  the  year  around. 

The  next  time  they  appealed  to  the  doctrine  was  in  favor 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  so  that  every  white  man  in  the 
North  was  to  become  a  hound  to  bay  upon  the  track  of  the 
fugitive  slave.  Under  that  law  the  North  agreed  to  catch 
women  and  give  them  back  to  the  bloodhounds  of  the 
South.  Under  that  infamy  men  and  women  were  held  and 
were  kidnapped  under  the  shadow  of  the  dome  of  the  Na 
tional  Capitol.  If  the  Democratic  party  had  remained  in 
power  it  would  be  so  now.  The  South  said  :  "•  Be  fi  lends 
with  us,  all  we  want  is  to  steal  labor ;  be  friends  with  us, 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  79 

all  we  want  of  you  is  to  have  you  catch  our  slaves;  be 
friends  with  us,  all  we  want  of  you  is  to  be  in  partnership 
in  the  business  of  slavery,  and  we  are  to  take  all  the  money 
and  you  are  to  have  the  disgrace  and  dishonor  for  your 
share."  The  dividend  didn't  suit  me. 

The  next  time  they  appealed  to  the  doctrine  of  State 
rights  was  that  they  might  extend  the  area  of  human 
slavery  ;  it  was  that  they  might  desecrate  the  fair  fields  of 
Kansas. 

The  next  time  they  appealed  to  this  infamous  doctrine 
was  in  secession  and  treason  ;  so  now,  when  I  hear  any 
man  advocate  this  doctrine,  I  know  that  he  is  not  a  friend 
of  my  country,  he  is  not  a  friend  of  humanity,  of  liberty, 
or  of  progress. 


A  Dark  Picture. 

This  world  has  not  been  fit  to  live  in  fifty  years.  There 
is  no  liberty  in  it — very  little.  Why,  it  is  only  a  few  years 
ago  that  all  the  Christian  nations  were  engaged  in  the  t-lave 
trade.  It  was  not  until  1808  that  England  abolished 
the  slave  trade,  and  up  to  that  time  her  priests  in  her 
churches,  and  her  judges  on  her  benches,  owned  stock 
in  slave  ships,  and  luxuriated  on  the  profits  of  piracy 
and  murder;  and  when  a  man  stood  up  and  denounced  it, 
they  mobbed  him  as  though  he  had  been  a  common  burglar 
or  a  horse  thief.  Think  of  it !  It  was  not  until  the  28th 
day  of  August,  1833,  that  England  abolished  slavery  in  her 
colonies  ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  first  day  of  January,  1862, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  by  direction  of  the  entire  North, 
wiped  that  infamy  out  of  this  country  ;  and  I  never  speak 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  but  I  want  to  say  that  he  was,  in  uiy 
judgment,  in  many  respects  the  grandest  man  ever  President 
of  the  United  States.  I  say  that  upon  his  tomb  there  ought 


8o  COT,.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

to  be  this  line — and  I  know  of  no  other  man  deserving  it 
so  well  as  he:  "Here  lies  one  who  having  been  clothed 
with  almost  absolute  power  never  abused  it  except  on  the 
side  of  mercy." 


What  the  Colonel  Has  Seen  and  What  he  Wants 
to  See. 

I  have  been  in  countries  where  the  laboring  man  had 
meat  once  a  year  ;  sometimes  twice — Christinas  and  Easter. 
And  I  have  seen  women  carrying  upon  their  heads  a  bur 
den  that  no  man  would  like  to  carry,  and  at  the  same  time 
knitting  busily  with  both  hands.  And  those  women  lived 
without  meat ;  and  when  I  thought  of  the  American  laoorer 
1  said  to  myself,  ''After  all,  my  country  is  the  best  in  the 
world."  And  when  I  came  back  to  the  sea  and  saw  the 
old  flag  flying  in  the  air,  it  seemed  to  me  as  though  the  air 
from  pure  joy  had  burst  into  blossom. 

Labor  has  more  to  eat  and  more  to  wear  in  the  United 
States  than  in  any  other  land  of  this  earth.  I  want  Amer 
ica  to  produce  everything  that  Americans  need.  I  want  it 
so  if  the  whole  world  should  declare  war  against  us,  so  if 
we  wore  surrounded  by  walls  of  cannons  and  bayonets  and 
swords,  we  could  supply. all  our  human  wants  in  and  of 
ourselves.  I  want  to  live  to  see  the  American  woman 
dressed  in  American  silk  ;  the  American  man  in  everything 
from  hat  to  boots  produced  in  America  by  the  cunning 
hand  of  the  American  toiler. 

I  want  to  see  a  workingman  have  a  good  house,  painted 
white,  grass  in  the  front  yard,  carpets  on  the  floor  and  pic 
tures  on  the  wall.  I  want  to  see  him  a  man  feeling  that 
he  Is  a  king  by  the  divine  right  of  living  in  the  Republic* 
And  every  man  here  is  just  a  little  bit  a  king,  you  know. 
Every  man  here  is  a  part  of  the  sovereign  power.  Every 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  8  I 

man  wears  a  little  of  purple  ;  every  man  has  a  little  of 
crown  and  a  little  of  sceptre;  und  every  man  that  will  sell 
his  vote  for  money  or  be  ruled  by  prejudice  is  uutit  to  be 
an  American  citizen. 


The  Struggle  for  Liberty. 

Seven  long  years  of  war — fighting  for  what?  For  the 
principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal — a  truth  that 
nobody  ever  disputed  except  a  scoundrel;  nobody  in  the 
entire  history  of  this  world.  No  man  ever  denied  that 
truth  who  was  not  a  rascal,  and  at  heart  a  thief;  never, 
never,  and  never  will.  What  else  were  they  fighting  for? 
Simply  that  in  America  every  man  should  have  a  right  to 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Nobody  ever 
denied  that  except  a  villain ;  never,  never.  It  has  been 
denied  by  kings — they  were  thieves.  It  has  been  denied 
by  statesmen — they  were  liars.  It  has  been  denied  by 


82  COL.  1NGERSOLLS  WIT, 

priests,  by  clergymen,  by  cardinals,  by  bishops  and  by 
popes — they  were  hypocrites. 

What  else  were  they  fighting  for?  For  the  idea  that  all 
political  power  is  vested  in  the  great  body  of  the  people. 
They  make  all  the  money;  do  all  the  work.  They  plow 
the  land  ;  cut  down  the  forests  ;  they  produce  everything 
that  is  produced.  Then. who  shall  say  what  shall  be  done 
with  what  is  produced,  except  Mie  producer?  Is  it  the 
non-producing  thief,  sitting  on  a  throne,  surrounded  by 
vermin  ? 

The  history  of  civilization  is  the  history  of  the  slow  and 
painful  enfranchisement  of  the  human  race.  In  the  ol  len 
times  the  family  was  a  monarchy,  the  father  being  the 
monarch.  The  mother  and  children  were  the  veriest 
slaves.  The  will  of  the  father  was  the  supreme  law.  He 
had  the  power  of  life  and  death.  It  took  thousands  of 
years  to  civilize  this  father,  thousands  of  years  to  make  the 
condition  of  wife  and  mother  and  children  even  tolerable. 
A  lew  families  constituted  a  tribe;  the  tribe  had  a  chief ; 
the  chief  was  a  tyrant;  a  few  tribes  formed  a  nation  ;  the 
nation  was  governed  by  a  king,  who  was  also  a  tyrant.  A 
strong  nation  robbed,  plundered  and  took  captive  the 
weaker  ones. 


America's  Coming  Greatness. 

Standing  here  amid  the  sacred  memories  of  the  first  cen 
tury,  on  the  golden  threshold  of  the  second,  I  ask,  Will 
the  second  century  be  as  grand  as  the  first  ?  I  believe  it 
will,  because  we  are  growing  more  and  more  humane  ;  I 
believe  there  is  more  human  kindness,  and  a  greater  desire 
to  help  one  another,  than  in  all  the  world  besides. 

We  must  progress.  We  are  just  at  the  commencement 
of  invention.  The  steam  engine — the  telegraph — these  are 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.     '  8j 

but  the  toys  with  which  science  has  been  amuse'd.  There 
will  be  grander  things  ;  there  will  .be  wider  and  higher  cul 
ture — a  grander  standard  of  character,  of  literature  and  art. 

We  have  now  half  as  many  millions  of  people  as  we  have 
years.  We  are  getting  more  real  solid  sense.  We  are 
writing  and  reading  more  books;  we  are  struggling  more 
and  more  to  get  at  the  philosophy  of  life,  of  things — trying 
more  and  more  to  answer  the  questions  of  the  eternal 
Sphinx.  We  are  looking  in  every  direction — investigating  ; 
in  short,  we  are  thinking  and  working. 

The  world  has  changed.  I  have  had  the  supreme  pleas 
ure  of  seeing  a  man — once  a  slave— sitting  in  the  seat  of 
his  former  master  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  I 
have  had  that  pleasure,  and  when  I  saw  it  my  eyes  were 
filled  with  tears,  I  felt  that  we  had  carried  out  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  that  we  had  given  reality  to  it,  and 
breathed  the  breath  of  life  into  its  every  word.  I  felt  that 
our  flag  would  float  over  and  protect  the  colored  man  and 
his  little  children — standing  straight  in  the  sun,  just  the 
same  as  though  he  were  white  and  worth  a  million. 

All  who  stand  beneath  our  banner  are  free.  Ours  is  the 
only  flag  that  has  in  reality  written  upon  it:  Liberty, 
Fraternity,  Equality — the  three  grandest  words  in  all  the 
languages  of  men.  Liberty  :  Give  to  every  man  the  fruit 
of  his  own  labor — the  labor  of  his  hand  and  of  his  brain. 
Fraternity:  Every  man  in  the  right  is  my  brother.  Equal 
ity  :  The  rights  of  all  are  equal.  No  race,  no  color,  no 
previous  condition,  can  change  the  rights  of  men.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  has  at  last  been  carried  out 
in  letter  and  in  spirit.  The  second  century  will  be  grander 
than  the  first.  To-day  the  black  man  looks  upon  his  child 
and  says :  The  avenues  of  distinction  are  open  to  you — upon 
your  brow  may  fall  the  civic  wreath.  We  are  celebrating 
the  courage  and  wisdom  of  our  fathers,  and  the  glad  shout 


84  COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT, 

of  a  free  people,  the  anthem  of  a  grand  nation,  commencing 
at  the  Atlantic,  is  following  the  sun  to  the  Pacific,  across  a 
continent  of  happy  homes.  We  are  a  groat  people.  Three 
millions  have  increased  to  fifty — thirteen  states  to  thirty- 
eight.  We  have  better  homes,  and  more  of  the  conveni 
ences  of  life  than  any  other  people  upon  the  face  of  the 
globe.  The  fanners  of  our  country  live  better  than  did 
the  kings  and  princes  two  hundred  years  ago — and  they 
have  twice  as  much  sense  and  heart.  Liberty  and  labor 
have  given  us  all.  Remember  that  all  men  have  equal 
rights.  Remember  that  the  man  who  acts  best  his  part — 
who  loves  his  friends  the  best — is  most  willing  to  help 
others— truest  to  the  obligation — who  has  the  best  heart — 
the  most  feeling— the  deepest  sympathies — and  who  freely 
gives  to  others  the  rights  that  he  claims  for  himself,  is  the 
best  man.  We  have  disfranchised  the  aristocrats  of  the 
air  and  have  given  one  country  to  mankind. 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  85 


Ingersollisms. 

— Musicians  playing  to  a  deaf  audience  will  not  do  their 
best. 

— Man  must  give  liberty  to  others  if  he  would  be  free 
himself. 

— A  lie  will  not  fit  a  fact;  it  will  only  fit  another  lie  for 
the  purpose. 

— For  ages  reason  was  the  cry  of  a  drowning  man  lost  in 
the  roaring  bea. 

— Every  fact  pushes  a  superstition  from  the  brain  and  a 
ghost  from  the  clouds. 

— Fear  paints  pictures  of  the  ghosts  and  hangs  them  in 
the  gallery  of  ignorance. 

— The  man  who  does  not  do  his  own  thinking  is  a  slave, 
and  does  not  do  his  duty  to  his  fellow-men. 

— Every  form  of  slavery  is  a  viper  that  will  sooner  or 
later  strike  its  poisonous  fangs  into  the  bosoms  of  ir^n. 

— Out  on  the  intellectual  sea  there  is  room  for  every  sail; 
in  the  intellectual  air  there  is  space  enough  for  every  wing. 

— Without  liberty  there  can  be  no  worship.  The  slave 
may  bow,  and  cringe,  and  crawl,  but  he  cannot  h>e,  he 
caimot  adore. 


86  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

— Great  minds  seem  to  be  a  part  of  the  infinite.  Those 
possessing  them  seem  to  be  brothers  of  the  mountains  and 
the  seas. 

— And  this  is  my  advice  to  the  poor.  You  can  never  be 
so  poor  that  whatever  you  do  you  can't  do  in  a  grand  and 
manly  way. 

— Frederick  Douglass  told  me  that  he  had  lectured  upon 
the  subject  of  freedom  twenty  years  before  he  was  permit 
ted  to  set  his  foot  in  a  church. 

— The  time  is  coining  when  a  man  will  be  rated  at  his 
real  worth,  and  that  by  his  brain  and  heart.  We  care 
nothing  now  about  an  officer  unless  he  fills  his  place. 

— The  time  will  come  when  no  matter  how  much  money 
a  man  has  he  will  not  be  respected  unless  he  is  using  it  for 
the  benefit  of  his  fellow-men.  It  will  soon  be  here. 

— I  pity  the  man,  I  execrate  the  man,  who  has  only  to 
brag  that  he  is  white.  Whenever  I  am  reduced  to  that 
necessity,  I  believe  shame  will  make  me  red  instead  of 
white 

— Great  men  do  not  live  alone ;  they  are  surrounded  by 
the  great;  they  are  the  instruments  used  to  accomplish  the 
tendencies  of  their  generation  ;  they  fulfil  the  prophecies  of 
their  age. 

— I  believe  all  the  intellectual  domain  of  the  future  is 
open  to  every  :nan.  Every  man  who  finds  a  fact  first,  that 
is  to  be  his  fact.  Every  man  who  thinks  a  thought  first, 
that  is  to  be  his  thought. 

— I  know  not  what  discoveries,  what  inventions,  what 
thoughts  may  leap  from  the  brain  of  the  world.  I  know 
not  what  garments  of  glory  may  be  woven  by  the  years  to 
come.  1  cannot  dream  of  the  victories  to  be  won  upon  the 
field  of  thought ;  but  I  do  know  that,  coming  down  the  in- 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  87 

finite  sea  of  the  future,  there  will  never  touch  this  "bank 
and  shoal  of  time"  a  richer  gift,  a  rarer  blessing  than  lib 
erty  for  man,  woman  and  child. 

— I  believe  in  liberty,  and  I  say,  "Oh,  liberty,  float  not 
forever  in  the  far  horizon — remain  not  forever  in  the  dream 
of  the  enthusiast,  the  philanthropist  and  poet,  but  come 
and  make  thy  home  among  the  children  of  men." 

— All  the  mechanical  ingenuity  of  this  earth  cannot 
make  two  clocks  run  alike ;  and  how  are  you  going  to 
make  millions  of  people  of  different  quantities  and  qualities 
and  amount  of  brain,  clad  in  this  living  robe  of  passionate 
flesh,  how  are  you  going  to  make  millions  of  them,  think 
alike  ? 

— From  Copernicus  we  learned  that  this  earth  is  only  a 
grain  of  sand  on  the  infinite  "shore  of  the  universe;  that 
everywhere  we  are  surrounded  by  shining  worlds  vastly 
greater  than  our  own,  all  moving  and  existing  in  accord 
ance  with  law.  True,  the  earth  began  to  grow  small,  but 
man  began  to  grow  great. 

— The  last  Napoleon  was  not  satisfied  with  being  the 
emperor  of  the  French.  He  was  not  satisfied  with  having 
a  circlet  of  gold  about  his  head.  He  wanted  some  evidence 
that  he  had  something  of  value  within  his  head.  So  he 
wrote  the  life  of  Julius  Caesar  that  he  might  become  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy. 

— Abraham  Lincoln  was,  in  my  judgment,  in  many  re 
spects,  the  grandest  man  ever  President  ot  the  United 
States.  Upon  his  monument  these  words  should  be  writ 
ten  :  "Here  sleeps  the  only  man  in  the  history  of  the 
world  who,  having  been  clothed  with  almost  absolute 
power,  never  abused  it  except  upon  the  side  of  mercy." 

— A  government  founded  upon  anything  except  liberty 
and  justice  cannot  and  ought  not  to  stand.  All  the  wrecks 


88  COL.  INGERSOLL'S  WIT, 

on  either  side  of  the  stream  of  time,  all  the  wrecks  of  the 
great  cities,  and  all  the  nations  that  have  passed  away — all 
are  a  warning  that  no  nation  founded  upon  injustice  can 
stand.  From  the  sand-enshrouded  Egypt,  from  the  mar 
ble  wilderness  of  Athens,  and  from  every  fallen,  crumbling 
stone  of  the  once  mighty  Rome,  comes  a  wail,  as  it  were, 
the  cry  that  no  nation  founded  upon,  injustice  can  perma 
nently  stand. 

— I  have  some  excuses  to  offer  for  the  race  to  which  I 
belong.  My  first  excuse  is  that  this  is  not  a  very  good 
world  to  raise  (oiks  in  anyway.  It  is  not  very  well  adapted 
to  raising  magnificent  people.  There's  only  a  quarter  of  it 
laud  to  start  with.  It  is  three  times  better  fitted  for  rais 
ing  fish  than  folks ;  and  in  that  one-quarter  of  land  there  is 
not  a  tenth  part  fit  to  raise  people  on.  You  can't  raise 
people  without  a  good  climate.  You  have  got  to  have  the 
right  kind  of  climate,  and  you  have  got  to  have  certain  ele 
ments  in  the  soil  or  you  can't  raise  feood  people.  Do  you 
know  that  there  is  only  a  little  zig  zng  strip  around  the 
world  within  which  have  been  produced  all  men  of  genius  ? 

— In  my  judgment  the  black  people  have  suffered 
enough.  They  have  been  slaves  for  two  hundred  years. 
They  have  been  owned  two  hundred  years,  and,  more  than 
all,  they  have  been  compelled  to  keep  the  company  of  these 
who  owned  them.  Think  of  being  compelled  to  keep  the 
society  of  a  man  who  is  stealing  from  you.  Think  of  being 
compelled  to  live  with  a  man  that  stole  your  child  from  the 
cradle  before  your  very  eyes.  Think  of  being  compelled  to 
live  with  a  thief  all  your  life,  to  spend  your  days  with  a 
white  loafer,  and  to  be  under  his  control.  For  two  hun 
dred  years  they  were  bought  and  sold  and  branded  like 
cattle.  For  two  hundred  years  every  human  tie  was  rent 
and  torn  asunder  by  the  brutal,  bloody  hand  of  avarice 


WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE.  89 

and  might;  and  for  that  reason  I  am  in  favor  of  this  Gov 
ernment  protecting  them  in*  every  right  they  have  got  in 
every  Southern  State,  if  it  takes  another  war  to  do  it. 

— It  is  often  said  of  this  or  that  man  that  he  is  a  self- 
made  man — that  he  was  born  of  the  poorest  and  humblest 
parents,  and  that  with  every  obstacle  to  overcome  he  be 
came  great.  This  is  a  mistake.  Poverty  is  generally  an 
advantage.  Most  of  the  intellectual  giants  of  the  world 
have  been  nursed  at  the  sad  but  loving  breast  of  poverty. 
Most  of  those  who  have  climbed  highest  on  the  shining  lad 
der  of  fame  commenced  at  the  lowest  round.  They  were 
reared  in  the  straw  thatched  cottages  of  Europe ;  in  the  log 
houses  of  America  ;  in  the  factories  of  the  great  cities ;  in 
the  midst  of  toil  ;  in  the  smoke  and  din  of  labor,  and  on 
the  verge  of  want.  They  were  rocked  by  the  feet  of  moth 
ers  whose  hands,  at  the  same  time,  were  busy  with  the 
needle  or  the  wheel. 

— The  superior  man  is  the  man  who  helps  his  fellow- 
men  ;  the  superior  man  is  the  useful  man  ;  the  superior 
man  is  the  kind  man,  the  man  who  lifts  up  his  down-trod 
den  brothers ;  and  the  greater  load  of  human  sorrow  and 
human  want  you  can  get  in  your  arms  the  higher  you  can 
climb  the  great  hill  of  fame.  The  superior  man  is  the  man 
who  loves  his  fellow-men.  Let  me  say  right  here,  the  su 
perior  men,  the  grand  men,  are  brothers  the  world  over. 
No  matter  what  their  complexion — continents  may  divide 
them — yet  they  embrace  each  other.  Centuries  may  sep 
arate,  yet  they  are  hand  in  hand,  and  all  the  good  and  all 
the  grand  and  all  the  superior  men,  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
heart  to  heart,  are  fighting  che  great  battle  for  the  progress 
of  mankind. 

— All  the  advance  that  has  been  made  in  the  science  of 
medicine  has  been  made  by  the  recklessness  of  patients.  I 


9O     COL.  INGERSOLLS  WIT,  WISDOM,  AND  ELOQUENCE. 

can  recollect  when  they  wouldn't,  give  a  man  water  in  a 
fever — riot  a  drop.  Now  and  then  some  fellow  would  get 
so  thirsty  he  would  say  :  "Well,  I'll  die  anyway,  so  I'll 
drink  it,"  and  thereupon  he  would  drink  a  gallon  of  water, 
and  thereupon  he  would  burst  into  a  generous  perspiration 
and  get  well,  and  the  next  morning  when  the  doctor  would 
come  to  see  him  they  would  tell  him  about  the  man  drink 
ing  the  water,  and  he  would  say :  "How  much  ?" 

"Well,  he  swallowed  two  pitchers  full." 

"Is  he  alive?"     "Yes." 

So  they  would  go  into  the  room  and  the  doctor  would 
feel  his  pulse  and  ask  him  : 

"Did  you  drink  two  pitchers  of  water  ?" 

"Yes." 

"My  God  !  what  a  constitution  you  have  got." 

— I  think  we  came  from  the  lower  animals.  I  am  not 
dead  sure  of  it,  but  think  so.  When  I  first  read  about  it  I 
didn't  like  it.  My  heart  was  filled  with  sympathy  for  those 
people  who  leave  nothing  to  be  proud  of  except  ancestors. 
I  thought  how  terrible  this  will  be  upon  the  nobility  of  the 
old  world.  Tbink  of  their  being  forced  to  trace  their  an 
cestry  back  to  the  Duke  Orang-Outang  or  to  the  Princess 
Chimpanzee.  After  thinking  it  all  over  I  came  to  the  con 
clusion  that  I  liked  that  doctrine.  I  became  convinced  in 
spite  of  myself.  I  read  about  rudimentary  bones  and  mus 
cles.  I  was  told  that  everybody  had  rudimentary  muscles 
extending  from  the  ear  into  the  cheek.  I  asked  :  "What 
are  they?"  I  was  told:  "They  are  the  remains  of  mus 
cles;  they  became  rudimentary  from  the  lack  of  use." 
They  went  into  bankruptcy.  They  are  the  muscles  with 
which  your  ancestors  used  to  flap  their  ears.  Well,  at  first 
I  was  greatly  astonished,  and  afterward  I  was  more  aston 
ished  to  find  they  had  become  rudimentary. 


Part  II. 
GREAT  SPEECHES, 


COL.INGERSOLL'S 


L— TO  THE  FARMERS  ON  FARMING. 


INGEKSOLL  S    EARLY   EXPERIENCE   WHEN   HE   WAS  A  P'AEMEE— 
A  RETROSPECTIVE  VIEW. 


[From  the  Illinois  State 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  I  am  not  an  old  and  expe 
rienced  fanner,  nor  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  nor  one  of  the  hard- 
handed  sons  of  labor.  I  imagine,  however,  that  1  know 
something  about  cultivating  the  soil,  and  getting  happiness 
out  of  the  ground. 

I  know  enough  to  know  that  agriculture  is  the  basis  of 
all  wealth,  prosperity  and  luxury.  I  know  that  in  tho 
country  where  the  tillers  of  the  fields  are  free,  everybody 
is  free  and  ought  to  be  prosperous. 

The  eld  way  of  farming  was  a  great  mistake.  Every 
thing  wa&  done  the  wrong  way.  It  was  all  work  and  waste, 
weariness  and  want.  They  used  to  fence  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  if  land  with  a  couple  of  dogs.  Everything  was 
left  to  the  piotection  of  the  blessed  trinity  of  chanc?.  acci 
dent  and  mistake. 

When  I  was  a  farmer  they  used  to  haul  wheat  two  hun- 

3 


dred  miles  in  wagons  and  sell  it  for  thirty-five  cents  a 
bushel.  They  would  bring  home  about  three  hundred  feet 
of  lumber,  two  bunches  of  shingles,  a  barrel  of  salt,  and  a 
cook-stove  that  never  would  draw  and  never  did  bake. 

In  those  blessed  days  the  people  lived  on  corn  and  bacon. 
Cooking  was  an  unknown  art.  Eating  was  a  necessity,  not 
a  pleasure.  It  was  hard  work  for  the  cook  to  keep  on  good 
terms  even  with  hunger. 

We  had  poor  houses.  The  rain  held  the  roofs  in  perfect 
contempt,  and  the  snow  drifted  joyfully  on  the  floors  and 
beds.  They  had  no  barns.  The  horses  were  kept  in  rail 
pens  surrounded  with  straw.  Long  before  spring  the  sides 
would  be  eaten  away  and  nothing  but  roofs  would  be  left. 
Food  is  fuel.  When  the  cattle  were  exposed  to  all  the 
blasts  of  winter,  it  took  all  the  corn  and  oats  that  could  be 
stuffed  into  them  to  prevent  actual  starvation. 

In  those  times  farmers  thought  the  best  place  for  the  pig 
pen  was  immediately  in  front  of  the  house.  There  is  noth- 
inf  like  sociability. 

Women  were  supposed  to  know  the  art  of  making  fires 
without  fuel.  The  wood-pile  consisted,  as  a  general  thing, 
of  one  log,  upon  which  an  axe  or  two  had  been  worn  out 
in  vain.  There  was  nothing  to  kindle  a  fire  with.  Pickets 
were  pulled  from  the  garden  fence,  clap-boards  taken  from 
the  house,  and  every  stray  plank  was  seized  upon  for  kind 
ling.  Everything  was  done  in  the  hardest  way.  Every 
thing  about  the  farm  was  disagreeable.  Nothing  was  kept 
in  order.  Nothing  was  preserved.  The  wagons  stood  in 
the  sun  and  rain,  and  the  plows  rusted  in  the  fields.  There 
was  no  leisure,  no  feeling  that  the  work  was  done.  It  was 
all  labor  and  weariness  and  vexation  of  spirit.  The  crops 
were  destroyed  by  wandering  herds,  or  they  were  put  in 
too  late,  or  too  early,  or  they  were  blown  down,  or  caught 
by  the  frost,  or  devoured  by  bugs,  or  stung  by  flies,  or 


THREE    GREAT    SPEECHES.  3 

eaten  by  worms,  or  carried  away  by  birds,  or  dug  up  by 
gophers,  or  washed  away  by  floods,  or  dried  up  by  the  sua, 
or  rotted  in  the  stack,  or  heated  in  the  crib,  or  they  all  run 
to  vines,  or  tops,  or  straw,  or  sraut,  or  cobs.  And  when 
in  spite  of  all  these  accidents  that  lie  in  wait  between  the 
plow  and  the  reaper,  they  did  succeed  in  raising  a  good 
crop  and  a  high  price  was  offered,  then  the  roads  would  be 
impassable.  And  when  the  roads  got  good,  then  the  prices 
went  down.  Everything  worked  together  for  evil. 

Nearly  every  fanner's  boy  took  an  oath  that  he  would 
never  cultivate  the  soil.  The  moment  they  arrived  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one  they  left  the  desolate  and  dreary  farms 
and  rushed  to  the  towns  and  cities.  They  wanted  to  be 
book-keepers,  doctors,  merchants,  railroad  men,  insurance 
agents,  lawyers,  even  preachers,  anything  to  avoid  tha 
drudgery  of  the  farm.  Nearly  every  boy  acquainted  with 
the  three  li's — reading,  writing  and  arithmetic — imagined 
that  he  had  altogether  more  education  than  ought  to  be 
wasted  in  raising  potatoes  and  corn.  They  made  haste  to 
get  into  some  other  business.  Those  who  stayed  upon  the 
farm  envied  those  who  went  away. 

A  few  years  ago  the  times  we  re  prosperous,  and  the  young 
men  went  to  the  cities  to  enjoy  the  fortunes  that  were 
waiting  for  them.  They  wanted  to  engage  in  something 
that  promised  qnick  returns.  They  built  railways,  estab 
lished  brinks  and  insurance  companies.  They  speculated 
in  stocks  in  Wall  street,  and  gambled  in  grain  at  Chicago. 
They  became  rich.  They  lived  in  palaces.  They  rode  in 
carriages.  They  pitied  their  poor  brothers  on  the  farms, 
and  the  poor  brothers  envied  them. 

But  time  has  brought  its  revenge.  The  farmers  have 
seen  the  railroad  president  a  bankrupt,  and  the  road  in  the 
hands  of  a  receiver.  They  have  seen  the  bank  president 
abscond,  and  the  insurance  company  a.  wrecked  and  ruined 


0  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

fraud.     The  only  solvent  people,  as  a  class,  the  only  inde 
pendent  people,  are  the  tillers  of  the  soil. 

COL.  INGERSOLL'S  IDEAL  FARMER. 

Farming  must  be  made  more  attractive.  The  comforts 
of  the  town  must  be  added  to  the  beauty  of  the  fields.  The 
sociability  of  the  city  must  be  rendered  possible  in  the 
country. 

Farming  has  been  made  repulsive.  The  farmers  have 
been  unsociable,  and  their  homes  have  been  lonely.  They 
have  been  wasteful  and  careless.  They  have  not  been 
proud  of  their  business. 

No  farmer  can  afford  to  raise  corn  and  oats  and  hay  to 
pell.  He  should  sell  horses,  not  oats;  sheep,  cattle  an(J 
pork,  not  corn.  He  should  make  every  profit  possible  out 
of  what  he  produces.  So  long  as  the  farmers  of  the  Middle 
States  ship  their  corn  and  oats,  so  long  they  will  be  poor, — 
just  so  long  will  their  farms  be  mortgaged  to  the  insurance 
companies  and  banks  of  the  east, — just  so  long  will  they  do 
the  work,  and  others  reap  the  benefit, — just  so  long  will 
they  be  poor,  and  the  money  lenders  grow  rich, — just  so 
long  will  cunning  avarice  grasp  and  hold  the  net  profits  of 
honest  toil.  When  the  fanners  of  the  west  ship  beef  and 
pork  instead  of  grain, — when  we  manufacture  here, — when 
we  cease  paying  tribute  to  others,  ours  will  be  the  most 
prosperous  country  in  the  world. 

Another  thing — It  is  just  as  cheap  to  raise  a  good  as  a 
poor  breed  of  cattle.  Scrubs  will  eat  just  as  much  as 
thoroughbreds.  If  you  are  not  able  to  buy  Durhams  and 
Alderneys,  you  can  raise  the  corn-breed.  13y  "corn-breed  " 

1  mean  the  cattle  that  have  for  several  generations  had 
enough  to  eat,  and  have  been  treated  with  kindness.   Every 
firmer  who  will  treat  his  cattle  kindly,  and  feed  them  all 
they  want,  will,  in  a  few  years,  have  blooded  stock  on  his 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  7 

farm.  All  blooded  stock  has  been  produced  in  this  way. 
You  can  raise  good  cattle  just  as  you  can  raise  good  people. 
It' you  wish  to  raise  a  good  b  >y  you  must  give  him  plenty 
to  eat,  and  treat  him  with  kindness.  In  this  way,  and  in 
this  way  only,  can  good  cattle  or  good  people  be  produced. 

Another  thing — You  must  beautify  your  homes. 

When  I  was  a  farmer  it  was  not  fashionable  to  set  out 
trees,  nor  to  plant  vines. 

"When  you  visited  the  farm  you  were  not  welcomed  by 
flowers,  and  greeted  by  trees  loaded  with  fruit.  Yellow 
dogs  came  bounding  over  the  tumbled  fence  like  wild  beasts. 
There  is  no  sense — there  is  no  profit  in  such  a  life.  It  is 
not  living.  The  farmers  ought  to  beautify  their  homes. 
There  should  be  trees  and  grass,  and  flowers  and  running 
vines.  Everything  should  be  kept  in  order ;  gates  should 
be  kept  on  their  hinges,  and  about  all  there  snould  be  the 
pleasant  air  of  thrift.  In  every  house  there  should  be  a 
bath-room.  The  bath  is  a  civilizer,  a  refiner,  a  beautifier. 
When  you  come  from  the  fields  tired,  covered  with  dust, 
nothing  is  so  refreshing.  Above  all  things,  keep  clean.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  be  a  pig  in  order  to  raise  one.  In  the 
cool  of  the  evening,  after  a  day  in  the  field,  put  on  clean 
ciothes,  take  a  seat  under  the  trees,  'mid  the  perfume  of 
flowers,  surrounded  by  your  family,  and  you  will  know 
what  it  is  to  enjoy  life  like  a  gentleman. 

WHAT    THE    COLONEL    BELIEVES   TO   BE    THE   BEST   PORTION  OF 
THE    EARTH. 

In  no  part  of  the  globe  will  farming  pay  better  than  in 
the  Western  States  You  are*in  the  best  portion  of  the 
earth.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  there  is  no  such 
country  as  yours.  The  east  is  hard  and  stony  ;  the  soil  is 
stingy.  The  far  v/est  is  a  desert  parched  and  barren,  dreary 
and  desolate  as  perdition  wou.d  be  with  the  fires  out.  It 


8  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

is  better  to  dig  wheat  and  corn  from  the  soil  than  gold. 
Only  a  few  days  ago  I  was  where  they  wrench  the  precious 
metals  from  the  miserly  clutch  of  the  rocks.  When  I  saw 
the  mountains,  treeless,  shrubless,  flowerless,  without  even 
a  spire  of  grass,  it  seemed  to  me  that  gold  had  the  same 
effect  upon  the  country  that  holds  it,  as  upon  the  man  who 
lives  and  labors  only  for  that.  It  affects  the  land  as  it  does 
the  man.  It  leaves  the  heart  barren  without  a  flower  of 
kindness — without  a  blossom  of  pity. 

The  farmer  in  the  Middle  States  has  the  best  soil — the 
greatest  return  for  the  least  labor — more  leisure — more 
time  for  enjoyment  than  any  other  farmer  in  the  world. 
His  hard  work  ceases  with  autumn.  He  has  the  long  win 
ters  in  which  to  become  acquainted  with  his  family — with 
his  neighbors — in  which  to  read  and  keep  abreast  with  the 
advanced  thought  of  his  day.  He  has  the  time  and  means 
of  self-culture.  He  has  more  time  than  the  mechanic,  the 
merchant  or  the  professional  man.  If  the  farmer  is  not 
well  informed  it  is  his  own  fault.  Books  are  cheap,  and 
every  farmer  can  have  enough  to  give  him  the  outline  of 
every  science,  and  an  idea  of  all  that  has  been  accomplished 
by  man. 

THE  FABMER  AND  THE  MECHANIC — WHICH  THE  COLONEL  THINKS 
HAS  THE  BEST  OF  IT. 

In  many  respects  the  farmer  has  the  advantage  of  the 
mechanic.  In  our  time  we  have  plenty  of  mechanics  but 
no  tradesmen.  In  the  sub-division  of  labor  we  have  a 
thousand  men  working  upon  different,  parts  of  the  same 
thing,  each  taught  in  one  particular  branch,  and  in  only 
one.  We  have,  say,  in  a  shoe- factory,  hundreds  of  men, 
but  not  a  shoemaker.  It  takes  them  all,  assisted  by  a  great 
number  of  machines,  to  make  a  shoe.  Each  does  a  par 
ticular  part,  and  not  oue  of  them  knows  the  entire  trade. 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  9 

» 

The  result  is  that  the  moment  the  factory  shuts  down  these 
men  are  out  of  employment  Out  of  employment  means 
out  of  bread — out  of  bread  means  famine  and  horror.  The 
mechanic  of  to-day  has  but  little  independence.  His  pros 
perity  often  depends  upon  the  good-will  of  one  man.  He 
is  liable  to  be  discharged  for  a  look,  for  a  word.  He  lays 
by  but  little  for  his  declining  years.  He  is,  at  the  best,  the 
slave  of  capital. 

It  is  a  thousand  times  better  to  be  a  whole  farmer  than 
part  of  a  mechanic.  It  is  better  to  till  the  ground  and 
work  for  yourself  than  to  be  hired  by  corporations.  Every 
man  should  endeavor  to  belong  to  himself. 

About  seven  hundred  years  ago,  Kheyam,  a  Persian, 
said  :  "Why  should  a  man  who  possesses  a  piece  of  bread 
securing  life  for  two  days,  and  who  has  a  cup  of  water — 
why  should  such  a  man  serve  another?"' 

Young  men  should  not  be  satisfied  with  a  salary.  Do 
not  mortgage  the  possibilities  of  your  future.  Have  the 
courage  to  take  life  as  it  comes,  feast  or  famine.  Think  of 
hunting  a  gold  mine  for  a  dollar  a  day,  and  think  of  finding 
one  for  another  man.  How. would  you  feel  then? 

We  are  lacking  in  true  courage,  when,  for  fear  of  the 
future,  we  take  the  crusts  and  scraps  and  niggardly  salaries 
of  the  present.  I  had  a  thousand  times  rather  have  a  farm 
and  be  independent,  than  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States  without  independence,  filled  with  doubt  and  trem 
bling,  feeling  of  the  popular  pulse,  resorting  to  art  and 
artifice,  inquiring  about  the  wind  of  opinion,  and  succeed 
ing  at  last  in  losing  my  self-respect  without  gaining  the  re 
spect  of  others. 

Man  needs  more  manliness,  more  real  independence.  We 
must  take  care  of  ourselves.  This  we  can  do  by  labor,  and 
in  this  way  we  can  preserve  our  independance.  We  should 
try  and  choose  that  business  or  profession  the  pursuit  of 


IO  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

which  will  give  ns  the  most  happiness.  Happiness  is  wealth. 
We  can  be  happy  without  being  rich — without  holding 
office — without  being  famous.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  can 
be  happy  with  wealth,  with  office,  or  with  fame. 

THE   FARMER   AND   THE    PROFESSIONAL   MAN — THE    RACE 
OF   LIFE. 

There  is  a  quiet  about  the  life  of  a  farmer,  and  the  hope 
of  a  serene  old  age.  that  no  other  business  or  profession  can 
promise.  A  professional  man  is  doomed  some  time  to  feel 
that  his  powers  are  waning.  He  is  doomed  to  see  younger 
and  stronger  men  pass  him  in  the  race  of  life.  He  looks 
forward  to  an  old  age  of  intellectual  mediocrity,  lie  will 
be  last  where  once  he  was  the  first.  But  the  farmer  goes, 
as  it  were,  into  partnership  with  nature — he  lives  with  trees 
and  flowers — he  breathes  the  sweet  air  of  the  fields.  There 
is  no  constant  and  frightful  strain  upon  his  mind.  His 
nights  are  filled  with  sleep  and  rest.  He  watches  his  flocks 
and  herds  as  they  feed  upon  the  green  and  sunny  slopes. 
lie  hears  the  pleasant  rain  falling  upon  the  waving  corn, 
and  the  trees  he  planted  in  youth  rustle  above  him  as  he 
plants  others  for  the  children  yet  to  be. 

Our  country  is  filled  with  the  idle  and  unemployed,  and 
the  great  question  asking  for  an  answer  is  :  What  shall  be 
done  with  these  men?  What  shall  these  men  do?  To 
this  there  is  but  one  answer  :  They  must  cultivate  the  soil. 

COL.  INGERSOLL'S  IDEA  OF  AN  EDUCATED  FARMER. 

Farming  must  be  more  attractive.  Those  who  work  the 
land  must  have  an  honest  pride  in  their  business.  They 
must  educate  their  children  to  cultivate  the  soil.  They 
must  make  farming  easier,  so  that  their  children  will  not 
hate  it  themselves.  The  boys  must  not  be  taught  that 


THREE    GREAT    SPEECHES.  I  I 

tilling  the  soil  is  a  curse  and  almost  a  disgrace.  They 
must  not  suppose  that  education  is  thrown  away  upon  them 
unless  they  become  ministers,  lawyers,  doctors  or  states 
men.  It  must  be  understood  that  education  can  be  used 
to  advantage  on  a  farm.  We  must  get  rid  of  the  idea  that 
a  little  learning  unfits  one  for  work.  There  are  hundreds 
of  graduates  of  Yale  and  Harvard  and  other  colleges,  who 
are  agents  of  sewing  machines,  solicitors  for  insurance, 
clerks,  copyists,  in  short,  performing  a  hundred  varieties  of 
menial  service.  They  seem  willing  to  do  anything  that  is 
not  regarded  as  work — anything  that  can  be  done  in  a  town, 
in  the  house,  in  an  office,  but  they  avoid  farming  as  they 
would  a  leprosy.  Nearly  every  young  man  educated  in 
this  way  is  simply  ruined.  Such  an  education  ought  to  be 
called  ignorance.  It  is  a  thousand  times  better  to  have 
common-sense  without  education,  than  education  without 
the  sense.  Boys  and  girls  should  be  educated  to  help 
themselves.  They  should  be  taught  that  it  is  disgraceful 
to  be  idle,  and  dishonorable  to  be  useless. 

I  say  again,  if  you  want  more  men  and  women  on  the 
farms,  something  must  be  done  to  make  farm-life  pleasant. 
One  great  difficulty  is  that  the  farm  is  lonely.  People 
write  about  the  pleasures  of  solitude,  but  they  are  found 
only  in  books.  He  who  lives  long  alone  becomes  insane. 
A  hermit  is  a  mad  man.  Without  friends  and  wife  and 
child,  there  is  nothing  left  worth  living  for.  The  unsocial 
are  the  enemies  of  joy.  They  are  filled  with  egotism  and 
envy,  with  vanity  and  hatred.  People  who  live  much 
alone  become  narrow  and  suspicious.  They  are  apt  to  be 
the  property  of  one  idea.  They  begin  to  think  there  is  no 
use  in  anything.  They  look  up<m  the  happiness  of  others 
as  a  kind  of  folly.  They  hate  joyous  folks,  because,  way 
down  in  their  hearts,  they  envy  them. 


12  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

SHOULD    LIVE   IN    VILLAGES. 

In  our  country  farm-life  is  too  lonely.  The  farms  are 
large,  and  neighbors  are  too  far  apart.  In  these  days,  when 
the  roads  are  tilled  with  ''tramps,*'  the  wives  and  children 
need  protection.  When  the  farmer  leaves  home  and  goes 
to  some  distant  field  to  work,  a  shadow  of  fear  is  upon  his 
heart  all  day,  and  a  like  shadow  rests  upon  all  at  home. 

In  the  early  settlement  of  our  country  the  pioneer  was 
forced  to  take  his  family,  his  axe,  his  dog  and  his  eun,  and 
go  into  the  far  wild  forest,  and  build  his  cabin  miles  and 
miles  from  any  neighbor.  He  saw  the  smoke  from  his 
hearth  go  up  alone  in  all  the  wide  and  lonely  sky. 

But  this  necessity  has  passed  away,  and  now,  instead  ot 
living  so  far  apart  upon  the  lonely  farms,  you  should  live 
in  villages.  With  the  improved  machinery  which  you  have 
— with  your  generous  soil — with  your  markets  and  means 
of  transportation,  you  can  now  afford  to  live  together. 

You  should  live  in  villages,  so  that  you  can  have  the 
benefits  of  social  life.  You  can  have  a  reading-room — you 
can  take  the  best  papers  arid  magazines — you  can  have 
plenty  of  books,  and  each  one  can  have  the  benefit  of  them 
all.  Some  of  the  young  men  and  women  can  cultivate 
music.  You  can  have  social  gatherings — you  can  learn 
from  each  other — you  can  discuss  all  topics  of  interest,  and 
in  this  way  you  can  make  farming  a  delightful  business. 
You  must  keep  up  with  the  age.  The  way  to  make  farming 
respectable  is  for  fanners  to  become  really  intelligent. 
They  must  live  intelligent  and  happy  lives.  They  must 
not  be  satisfied  with  knowing  something  of  the  affairs  of  a 
neighborhood  and  nothfng  about  the  re.-*t  of  the  earth.  The 
business  must  be  made  attractive,  and  it  never  can  be 
until  the  farmer  has  prosperity,  intelligence  and  leisure. 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  13 

THE  COLONEL'S  AMUSING  REMARKS  ABOUT  GETTING  UP  EARLY 
IN  THE  MORNING. 

ft  is  doe  necessary  in  this  age  of  the  world  for  the  farmer 
to  rise  in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  begin  his  work. 
This  getting  up  so  early  in  the  morning  is  a  relic  of  bar 
barism.  It  has  made  hundreds  of  thousands  of  young  men 
curse  the  business.  There  is  no  need  of  getting  up  at 
three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  winter  morning.  The  farmer 
who  persists  in  dragging  his  wife  and  children  from  their 
beds  ought  to  be  visited  by  a  missionary.  It  is  time  enough 
to  rise  after  the  sun  has  set  the  example.  For  what  pur 
pose  do  you  get  up  ?  To  feed  the  cattle  ?  Why  not  feed 
them  more  the  night  before  ?  It  is  a  waste  of  life.  In  the 
old  times  they  used  to  get  up  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  go  to  work  long  before  the  sun  had  risen  with 
'•healing  upon  his  wings,"  arid  as  a  just  punishment  they 
all  had  the  ague ;  and  they  ought  to  have  it  now.  The 
man  who  cannot  get  a  living  upon  Illinois  soil  without 
rising  before  daylight  ought  to  starve.  Ei^ht  hours  a  day 
is  enough  for  any  fanner  to  work  except  in  harvest  time. 
When  you  rise  at  four  and  work  till  dark  what  is  life  worth? 
Of  what  use  are  all  the  improvements  in  farming?  Of 
what  use  is  all  the  improved  machinery  unless  it  tends  to 
give  the  farmer  a  little  more  leisure  ?  What  is  harvesting 
now,  compared  with  what  is  was  in  the  old  time?  Think 
of  the  days  of  reaping,  of  cradling,  of  raking  and  binding 
and  mowing.  Think  of  threshing  with  the  flail  and  win 
nowing  with  the  wind.  And  now  think  of  the  reapers  and 
mowers,  the  binders  and  threshing  machines,  the  plows  and 
cultivators,  upon  which  the  farmer  rides  protected  from  the 
sun.  If,  with  all  these  advantages,  you  cannot  get  a  living 
without  rising  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  go  into  some 
other  business.  You  should  not  rob  your  families  of  sleep. 


14  COL.  INGERSOLLS 

Sleep  is  the  best  medicine  in  the  world.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  health  without  plenty  of  sleep.  Sleep  until  you 
are  thoroughlj*  rested  arid  restored.  When  you  work, 
work ;  and  when  you  get  through  take  a  good,  long  and 
refreshing  sleep. 

THE   FASHIONS    AND   HANDSOME    WOMEN. 

Another  thing — I  am  a  believer  in  fashion.  It  is  the 
duty  of  every  woman  to  make  herself  as  beautiful  and 
attractive  as  she  possibly  can. 

"Handsome  is  as  handsome  does,"  but  she  is  much 
handsomer  if  well  dressed.  Every  man  should  look  his 
very  best.  I  am  a  believer  in  good  clothes.  The  time 
never  ought  to  come  in  this  country  when  you  can  tell  a 
fanner's  wife  or  daughter  simply  by  the  garments  she 
wears.  I  say  to  every  girl  and  woman,  no  matter  what  the 
material  of  your  dress  may  be,  no  matter  how  cheap  and 
coarse  it  is,  cut  it  and  make  it  in  the  fashion.  I  believe  in 
jewelry.  Some  people  look  upon  it  as  barbaric,  but  in  my 
judgment,  wearing  jewelry  is  the  first  evidence  the  barbarian 
gives  of  a  wish  to  be  civilized.  To  adorn  ourselves  seems 
to  be  a  part  of  our  nature,  and  this  desire  seems  to  be  every 
where  and  in  everything.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that 
the  desire  for  beauty  covers  the  earth  with  flowers.  It  is 
this  desire  that  paints  the  wings  of  moths,  tints  the  chamber 
of  the  shell,  and  gives  the  bird  its  plumage  and  its  song. 
Oh  !  daughters  and  wives,  if  you  wouid  be  loved,  adoro 
yourselves — if  you  would  be  adored,  be  beautiful! 

HOME    VS.    THE   BOAKDINQ-HOUSE. 

There  is  another  fault  common  with  the  farmers  of  oui 
country — they  want  too  much  land.  You  cannot,  at  present, 
when  taxes  aiv  high,  afford  to  own  land  that  you  do  not 
cultivate.  Sell  it  «.'.id  let  others  w.a-k^  farm*  a.ud  homes. 


THREE    GREAT    LECTURES.  1 5 

In  this  way  what  you  keep  will  be  enhanced  in  value. 
Farmers  ought  to  own  the  land  they  cultivate,  and  cultivate 
what  they  own.  Renters  can  hardly  be  called  fanners. 
There  can  be  no  such  thing  in  the  highest  sense  as  a  home 
unless  you  own  it.  There  must  be  an  incentive  to  plant 
trees,  to  beautify  the  grounds,  to  preserve  and  improve. 
It  elevates  a  man  to  own  a  home.  Jt  gives  a  certain  inde 
pendence,  a  force  of  character  that  is  obtained  in  no  other 
way.  A  man  without  a  home  feels  like  a  passenger.  There 
is  in  such  a  man  a  little  of  the  vagrant.  Hom2S  make 
patriots.  lie  who  has  sat  by  his  own  fireside  with  wife 
and  children,  will  defend  it.  When  he  hears  the  word 
country  pronounced,  he  thinks  of  his  home. 

Few  men  have  been  patriotic  enough  to  shoulder  a  mus 
ket  in  defense  of  a  boarding  house. 

The  prosperity  and  glory  of  our  country  depend  upon 
the  number  of  our  people  who  are  the  owners  of  homes. 
Around  the  fireside  cluster  the  private  and  the  public  vir 
tues  of  our  race.  Raise  your  sons  to  be  independent 
through  labor — to  pursue  some  business  for  themselves, 
and  upon  their  own  account — to  be  self-reliant — to  act 
upon  their  own  responsibility,  and  to  take  the  consequences 
like  men.  Teach  them  above  all  things  to  be  good,  true 
and  faithful  husbands — winners  of  love,  and  builders  of 
homes. 

INDUSTRY    AND    BROTHERHOOD. 

A  great  many  farmers  seem  to  think  that  they  are  the 
only  laborers  in  the  world.  This  is  a  very  foolish  thing. 
Fanners  cannot  get  along  without  the  mechanic.  You  are 
not  independent  of  the  man  of  genius.  Your  prosperity 
depends  upon  the  inventor.  The  world  advances  by  the 
assistance  of  all  laborers;  and  all  labor  is  under  obligations 
to  the  inventions  of  genius.  The  inventor  does  as  much 
for  agricultrre  as  he  who  tills  the  soil.  Ail  laboring  men 


1 6  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

should  be  brothers.  Yon  are  in  partnership  with  the  me 
chanics  who  make  your  reapers,  jour  mowers  and  your 
plows;  and  you  should  take  into  your  granges  all  the  men 
who  make  their  living  by  honest  labor.  The  laboring 
people  should  unite  and  should  protect  themselves  against 
all  idlers.  You  can  divide  mankind  into  two  classes:  the 
laborers  and  the  idlers,  the  supporters  and  the  supported, 
the  honest  and  the  dishonest.  Every  man  is  dishonest  who 
lives  upon  the  unpaid  labor  of  others,  no  matter  if  lie  occu 
pies  a  throne.  All  laborers  should  be  brothers.  The 
laborers  should  have  equal  rights  before  the  world  and 
before  the  law.  And  I  want  every  farmer  to  consider  every 
man  who  labors  either  witii  hand  or  brain  as  his  brother. 
Until  genius  and  labor  formed  a  partnership  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  prosperity  among  men.  Every  reaper  and 
mower,  every  agricultural  implement,  has  elevated  the 
work  of  the  farmer,  and  his  vocation  grows  grander  with 
every  invention.  In  the  olden  time  the  agriculturist  was 
ignorant ;  he  knew  nothing  of  machinery,  he  was  the  slave 
of  superstition. 

The  farmer  has  beep  elevated  through  science,  and  he 
should  not  forget  the  debt  he  owes  to  the  mechanic,  to  the 
inventor,  to  the  thinker.  He  should  remember  that  all 
laborers  belong  to  the  same  grand  family — that  they  are 
the  real  kings  and  queens,  the  only  true  nobility. 

WHAT   THE    RAILROADS    HAVE     DONE — THIRTY-THREE    DOZEN 
EGGS   FOR   ONE   DOLLAR. 

Another  idea  entertained  by  most  farmers  is  that  they 
are  in  some  mysterious  way  oppressed  by  every  other  kind 
of  business— that  they  are  devoured  by  monopolies,  espe 
cially  by  railroads. 

Of  course,  the  railroads  are  indebted  to  the  farmers  for 
their  prosperity,  and  tho  farmers  are  indebted  to  the  railroads. 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  1 7 

A  few  years  ago  you  endeavored  to  regulate  the  charges 
of  railroad  companies.  The  principal  complaint  you  had 
was  that  they  charged  too  much  for  the  transportation  of 
corn  and  other  cereals  to  the  East.  You  should  remember 
that  all  freight  are  paid  by  the  consumers  of  the  grain. 
You  are  really  interested  in  transportation  from  the  East 
to  the  West  and  in  local  freights.  The  result  is  that  while 
you  have  put  down  through  freights  }rou  have  not  succeeded 
so  well  in  local  freights.  The  exact  opposite  should  be  the 
policy  in  Illinois.  Put  down  local  freights ;  put  them  down, 
if  you  can,  to  the  lowest  possible  figure,  and  let  through 
freights  take  care  of  themselves.  If  all  the  corn  raised  in 
Illinois  could  be  transported  to  New  York  absolutely  free, 
it  would  enhance  but  little  the  price  that  you  would  receive. 
What  we  want  is  the  lowest  possible  local  rate.  Instead  of 
this  you  have  simply  succeeded  in  helping  the  East  at  the 
expense  of  the  West.  The  railroads  are  your  friends. 
They  are  your  partners.  They  can  prosper  only  where  the 
country  through  which  they  run  prospers.  All  intelligent 
railroad  men  know  this.  They  know  that  present  robbery 
is  future  bankruptcy.  They  know  that  the  interest  of  the 
farmer  and  of  the  railroad  is  the  same.  We  must  have 
railroads.  What  can  we  do  without  them  ? 

When  we  had  no  railroads,  we  drew,  as  I  said  before,  our 
grain  two  hundred  miles  to  market. 

In  those  days  the  farmers  did  not  stop  at  hotels.  They 
slept  under  the  wagons — took  with  them  their  food— fried 
their  own  bacon,  made  their  own  coffee,  and  ate  their  meals 
in  the  snow  and  rain.  Those  were  the  days  when  they 
received  ten  cents  a  bushels  for  corn — when  they  sold  four 
bushels  of  potatoes  for  a  quarter — thirty-three  dozen  eggs 
for  a  dollar,  and  a  hundred  pounds  of  pork  for  a  dollar  and 
a  half. 

What  has  made  the  difference  ?     The  railroads  came  to 


1 8  COL.  IXGERSOLL'S 

your  door  and  they  brought  with  them  the  markets  of  the 
world.  They  brought  New  York  and  Liverpool  and  Lon 
don  into  Illinois,  and  the  State  lias  been  clothed  with  pros 
perity  as  with  a  mantle.  It  is  the  interest  of  the  farmer  to 
protect  every  great  interest  in  the  State.  In  these  iron 
highways  more  than  three  hundred  million  dollars  have 
been  invested — a  sum  equal  to  ten  times  the  original  cost 
of  all  the  land  in  the  State.  To  make  war  upon  the  rail 
roads  is  a  short-sighted  and  suicidal  policy.  They  should 
be  treated  fairly  and  should  be  taxed  by  the  same  standard 
that  farms  are  taxed,  and  in  no  other  way.  If  we  wish  to 
prosper  we  must  act  together,  and  we  must  see  to  it  that 
every  form  of  labor  is  protected. 

BUSINESS    AND    THE    MONEY    QUESTION. 

There  has  been  a  long  period  of  depression  in  all  busi 
ness.  The  farmers  have  suffered  least  of  all.  Your  land 
is  just  as  rich  and  productive  as  ever.  Prices  have  been 
reasonable.  The  towns  and  cities  have  suffered.  Stocks 
and  bonds  have  shrunk  from  par  to  worthless  paper. 
Princes  have  become  paupers,  and  bankers,  merchants  and 
millionaires  have  passed  into  the  oblivion  of  bankruptcy. 
The  period  of  depression  is  slowly  passing  away,  and  we 
are  entering  upon  better  times. 

A  great  many  poople  say  that  a  scarcity  of  money  is  our 
only  difficulty.  In  my  opinion  we  have  money  enough, 
but  we  Jack  confidence  in  each  other  in  the  future. 

There  has  been  so  much  dishonesty,  there  have  been  so 
many  failures,  that  the  people  are  afraid  to  trust  anybody. 
There  is  plenty  of  money,  but  there  seems  to  be  a  scarcity 
of  business.  It  you  were  to  go  to  the  owner  of  a  ferry, 
and,  upon  seeing  his  boat  lying  high  and  dry  on  the  shore, 
should  say,  "There  is  a  superabundance  of  ferry-boat," 
he  would  probably  reply,  ".No,  but  there  is  a  scarcity  of 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  1 9 

water."  So  with  ns  there  is  not  a  scarcity  f  money,  but 
there  is  a  scarcity  of  business.  And  this  scarcity  springs 
from  Jack  of  confidence  in  one  another.  So  many  presi 
dents  of  savings  banks,  even  those  belonging  to  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  run  off  with  the  funds;  so 
many  railroad  and  insurance  companies  are  in  the  hands  of 
receivers;  there  is  so  much  bankruptcy  on  every  hand,  that 
all  capital  is  held  in  the  nervous  clutch  of  fear.  Slowly, 
but  surely,  we  are  coming  back  to  honest  methods  in  busi 
ness.  Confidence  will  return,  and  then  enterprise  will  un 
lock  the  safe  and  money  will  again  circulate  as  of  yore; 
the  dollars  will  leave  their  hiding  places,  and  every  one  will 
be  seeking  investment. 

For  my  part  I  do  not  ask  any  interference  on  the  part  of 
the  government  except  to  undo  the  wrdng  it  has  done.  I 
do  not  ask  that  money  be  made  out  of  nothing.  I  do  not 
ask  for  the  prosperity  born  of  paper.  But  I  do  ask  for  the 
remonetization  of  silver.  Silver  was  demonetized  by  fraud. 
It  was  an  imposition  upon  every  solvent  man;  a  fraud 
upon  every  honest  debtor  in  the  United  States.  It  assas 
sinated  labor.  It  was  done  in  the  interest  of  avarice  and 
greed,  and  should  be  undone  by  honest  men. 

The  farmers  should  vote  only  for  such  men  as  are  able 
and  willing  to  guard  and  advance  the  interests  of  labor. 
We  should  know  better  than  to  vote  for  men  who  will  de 
liberately  put  a  tariff  of  three  dollars  a  thousand  upon 
Canada  lumber,  when  every  farmer  in  the  States  is  a  pur 
chaser  of  lumber.  People  who  live  upon  the  prairies  ought 
to  vote  for  cheap  lumber.  We  should  protect  ourselves. 
We  ought  to  have  intelligence  enough  to  know  what  we 
want  and  how  to  get  it.  The  real  laboring  man  of  this 
country  can  succeed  if  they  are  united.  By  laboring  men, 
I  do  not  mean  only  the  fanners.  I  mean  all  who  contri 
bute  in  some  way  to  the  general  welfare.  They  should 


2O  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

forget  prejudices  and  party  names,  and  remember  only  the 
best  interests  of  the  people.  Let  us  see  if  we  cannot  pro 
tect  every  department  of  industry.  Let.  us  see  if  all  prop 
erty  cannot  be  protected  alike  and  taxed  alike,  whether 
owned  by  individuals  or  corporations. 

Where  industry  creates  and  justice  protects,  prosperity 
dwells. 

ILLINOIS. 

Let  me  tell  you  something  about  Illinois.  We  have  fifty- 
six  thousand  square  miles  of  land — nearly  thirty-six  mil 
lion  acres.  Upon  these  plains  we  can  raise  enough  to  feed 
and  clothe  twenty  million  people.  Beneath  these  prairies 
were  hidden,  millions  of  ages  ago,  by  that  old  miser,  the 
sun,  thirty-six  thousand  square  miles  of  coal.  The  aggre 
gate  thickness  of  these  veins  is  at  least  fifteen  feefe.  Think 
of  a  column  of  coal  one  mile  square  and  one  hundred  miles 
high  !  All  this  came  from  the  sun.  What  a  sunbeam  such 
a  column  would  be !  Think  of  all  this  force,  willed  and 
left  to  us  by  the  dead  morning  of  the  world  !  Think  of 
the  fireside  of  the  future  around  which  will  sit  the  fathers, 
mothers  and  children  of  the  years  to  be !  Think  of  the 
sweet  and  happy  faces,  the  loving  and  tender  eyes  that  will 
glow  and  gleam  in  the  sacred  light  of  all  these  flames ! 

We  have  the  best  country  in  the  world.  Is  there  any 
reason  that  our  farmers  should  not  be  prosperous  and  happy 
men?  They  have  every  advantage,  arid  within  their  reach 
are  all  the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life. 

Do  not  get  the  land  fever  and  think  you  must  buy  all  the 
land  that  joins  you.  Get  out  of  debt  as  soon  as  you  pos 
sibly  can.  A  mortgage  casts  a  shadow  on  the  sunniest 
field.  There  is  no  business  under  the  sun  that  ran  pay  ten 
per  cent. 

WHAT  A  DOLLAR  CAN  DO. 

Ainsworth  R.  Spofford  gives  the  following  facts  abou* 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  21 

interest:  " One  dollar  loaned  for  one  hundred  years  at  six 
per  cent.,  with  the  interest  collected  annually  and  added 
to  the  principal,  will  amount  to  three  hundred  and  forty 
dollars.  .  At  eight  per  cent,  it  amounts  to  two  thousand 
two  hundred  and  three  dollars.  At  three  per  cent,  it 
amounts  only  to  nineteen  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents. 
At  ten  per  cent,  it  is  thirteen  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
nine  dollars,  or  about  seven  hundred  times  as  much.  At 
twelve  per  cent,  it  amounts  to  eighty-four  thousand  and  sev 
enty-five  dollars,  or  more  than  four  thousand  times  as  much. 
At  eighteen  per  cent,  it  amounts  to  fifteen  million  one  hun 
dred  and  forty-five  thousand  and  seven  dollars.  At  twen 
ty-four  per  cent,  (which  we  sometimes  hear  talked  of)  it 
reaches  the  enormous  sum  of  two  billion  five  hundred  and 
fifty-one  million  seven  hundred  and  ninety-nine  thousand 
four  hundred  and  four  dollars." 

One  dollar  at  compound  interest,  at  twenty-four  per 
cent.,  for  one  hundred  years,  would  produce  a  sum  equal 
to  our  national  debt. 

Interest  eats  night  and  day,  and  the  more  it  eats  the 
hungrier  it  grows.  The  farmer  in  debt,  lying  awake  at 
night,  can,  if  he  listens,  hear  it  gnaw.  If  he  owes  nothing, 
he  can  hear  his  corn  grow.  Get  out  of  debt  as  soon  as 
you  possibly  can.  You  have  supported  idle  avarice  and 
lazy  economy  long  enough. 

HOW  A  MAN  SHOULD  TREAT  HIS  WIFE  AND  CHILDREN. 

Above  all,  let  every  farmer  treat  his  wife  and  children 
with  infinite  kindness.  Give  your  sons  and  daughters  every 
advantage  within  your  power.  In  the  air  of  kindness  they 
will  grow  about  you  like  flowers.  They  will  fill  your  homes 
with  sunshine  and  all  your  years  with  joy.  Do  not  try  to 
rule  by  force.  A  blow  from  a  parent  leaves  a  scar  on  the 
soul.  I  should  feel  ashamed  to  die  surrounded  by  children 


22  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

I  had  whipped.  Think  of  feeling  upon  your  dying  lips  the 
kiss  of  a  child  you  had  struck. 

See  to  it  that,  your  wife  has  every  convenience.  Make 
her  life  worth  living.  Never  allow  her  to  become  a  servant. 
Wives,  weary  and  worn ;  mothers,  wrinkled  and  bent  be 
fore  their  time,  fill  homes  with  grief  and  shame.  If  you 
are  not  able  to  hire  help  for  your  wives,  help  them  your 
selves.  See  that  they  have  the  best  utensils  to  work  with. 
Women  cannot  create  things  by  magic.  Have  plenty  of 
wood  and  coal — good  cellars  and  plenty  in  them.  Have 
cisterns,  so  that  you  can  have  plenty  of  rain  water  for  wash 
ing.  Do  not  rely  on  a  barrel  and  a  board.  When  the  rain 
comes  the  board  will  be  lost  or  the  hoops  will  be  off  the 
barrel. 

Fanners  should  live  like  princes.  Eat  the  best  things 
you  raise  and  sell  the  rest.  Have  good  things  to  cook  and 
good  things  to  cook  with.  Of  all  people  in  our  country, 
you  should  live  the  best.  Throw  your  miserable  little  stoves 
out  of  the  window.  Get  ranges,  and  have  them  so  built 
that  your  wife  need  not  burn  her  face  off  to  get  you  a  break 
fast.  Do  not  make  her  cook  in  a  kitchen  hot  as  the  ortho 
dox  perdition.  The  beef,  not  the  cook,  should  be  roasted. 
It  is  just  as  easy  to  have  things  convenient  and  right  as  to 
have  them  any  other  way. 

INOERSOLL   ON   COOKERY. 

Cooking  is  one  of  the  fine  arts.  Give  yonr  wives  and 
daughters  things  to  cook,  and  things  to  cook  with,  and  they 
will  soon  become  most  excellent  cooks.  Good  cooking  is 
the  basis  of  civilization.  The  man  whose  arteries  and  veins 
are  tilled  with  rich  blood  made  <>f  good  and  well-cooked 
food,  has  pluck,  courage,  endurance  and  noble  impulses. 
Remember  that  your  wife  should  have  things  to  cook  with. 

In  the  good  old  days  there  would  be  eleven  children  in 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  23 

the  family  and  only  one  skillet.  Even  thing  was  broken 
or  cracked  or  loaned  or  lost. 

There  ought  to  be  a  law  making  it  a  crime,  punishabls 
by  imprisonment,  to  fry  beefsteak.  Broil  ir ;  it  is  just  as 
easy,  and  when  broiled  it  is  delicious.  Fried  beefsteak  is 
not  fit  for  a  wild  beast.  You  can  broil  even  on  a  stove. 
Shut  the  front  damper — open  the  back  one,  then  take  off  a 
griddle.  There  will  then  be  a  draft  downwards  through 
this  opening.  Put  on  3  our  steak,  using  a  wire  broih  r,  and 
not  a  particle  of  smoke  will  touch  it,  for  the  reason  that  the 
smoke  goes  down.  If  you  try  to  liroil  it  with  the  front 
damper  open,  the  smoke  will  rise.  For  broiling,  coal,  even 
soft  coal,  makes  a  better  fire  than  wood. 

There  is  no  reason  why  fanners  should  not  have  fresh 
meat  all  the  year  round.  There  is  certainly  no  sense  in 
stuffing  yourself  full  of  salt  meat  every  morning,  and  making 
a  well  or  a  cistern  of  your  stomach  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 
Every  fanner  should  have  an  ice  house.  Upon  or  near 
every  farm  is  some  stream  from  which  plenty  of  ice  can  be 
obtained,  and  the  long  summer  days  made  delightful.  Dr. 
Draper,  one  of  the  world's  greatest  scientists,  says  that  ice 
water  is  healthy,  and  that  it  has  done  away  with  many  of 
the  low  forms  of  fever  in  the  great  cities.  Ice  has  become 
one  of  the  necessaries  of  civilized  life,  and  without  it  there 
is  very  little  comfort. 

THE    HAPPT    HOME. 

Make  your  homes  pleasant.  Have  your  houses  warm 
and  comfortable  for  the  winter.  Do  not  build  a  story-and- 
a-half  house.  The  half-story  is  simply  an  oven  in  which, 
during  the  summer,  you  will  bake  every  night,  and  feel  in 
the  morning  as  though  only  the  rind  of  yourself  was  left. 

Decorate  your  rooms,  even  if  you  do  so  with  cheap 
engravings.  The  cheapest  are  far  better  than  none.  Have 
books — have  papers,  arid  read  them.  You  have  more 


24  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

• 

leisure  than  the  dwellers  in  cities.  Beautify  your  grounds 
with  plants  and  flowers  and  vines.  Have  good  gardens. 
Remember  that  everything  of  beauty  tends  to  the  elevation 
of  man.  Every  little  morning-glory  whose  purple  bosom 
is  thrilled  with  the  amorous  kisses  of  the  sun,  tends  to  put 
a  blossom  in  your  heart.  Do  not  judge  of  the  value  of 
everything  by  the  market  reports.  Every  flower  about  a 
house  certifies  to  the  refinement  of  somebody.  Every  vine, 
climbing  and  blossoming,  tells  of  love  and  joy. 

Make  your  houses  comfortable.  Do  not  huddle  together 
in  a  little  room  around  a  red-hot  stove,  with  every  window 
fastened  down.  Do  not  live  in  this  poisoned  atmosphere, 
and  then,  when  one  of  your  children  dies,  put  a  piece  in 
the  papers  commencing  with,  "  Whereas,  it  has  pleased 
divine  Providence  to  remove  from  our  midst — ."  Have 
plenty  of  air,  and  plenty  of  warmth.  Comfort  is  health. 
Do  not  imagine  anything  is  unhealthy  simply  because  it  is 
pleasant.  This  is  an  old  and  foolish  idea. 

Let  your  children  sleep.  Do  not  drag  them  from  their 
beds  in  the  darkness  of  night.  Do  not  compel  them  to 
associate  all  that  is  tiresome,  irksome  and  dreadful  with 
cultivating  the  soil.  In  this  way  you  bring  farming  into 
hatred  and  disrepute.  Treat  your  children  with  infinite 
kindness — treat  them  as  equals.  There  is  no  happiness  in 
a  home  not  filled  with  love.  Where  the  husband  hates  his 
wife — where  the  wife  hates  the  husband ;  where  children 
hate  their  parents  and  each  other — there  is  a  hell  upon 
earth. 

There  is  no  reason  why  farmers  should  not  be  the  kindest 
and  most  cultivated  of  men.  There  is  nothing  in  plowing 
the  fields  to  make  men  cross,  cruel  and  crabbed.  To  look 
upon  the  sunny  slopes  covered  with  daisies  does  not  tend 
to  make  men  unjust.  Whoever  labors  for  the  happiness  of 
those  he  loves,  elevates  himself,  no  mutter  whether  lie 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  25 

works  in  the  dark  and  dreary  shops,  or  in  the  perfumed 
fields.  To  work  for  others  is,  in  reality,  the  only  way  in 
which  a  man  can  work  for  himself.  Selfishness  is  ignor 
ance.  Speculators  cannot  make  unless  somebody  loses.  In 
the  realm  of  speculation,  every  success  has  at  least  one 
victim.  The  harvest  reaped  by  the  farmer  benefits  all  and 
injures  none.  For  him  to  succeed,  it  is  not  necessary  that 
some  one  should  fail.  The  same  is  true  of  all  producers — 
of  all  laborers. 

THE  COLONEL'S  VIEW  OF  "SOLID  COMFORT." 

I  can  imagine  no  condition  that  carries  with  it  such  a 
promise  of  joy  as  that  of  the  farmer  in  the  early  winter. 
He  has  his  cellar  filled — he  has  made  every  preparation  for 
the  days  of  snow  and  storm — he  looks  forward  to  three 
months  of  ease  and  rest ;  to  three  months  of  fireside  con 
tent;  three  months  with  wife  and  children;  three  months 
of  long,  delightful  evenings;  three  months  of  home;  three 
months  of  solid  comfort. 

When  the  life  of  the  farmer  is  such  as  I  have  described, 
the  cities  and  towns  will  not  be  tilled  with  want — the  streets 
will  not  be  crowded  with  wrecked  rogues,  broken  bankers, 
and  bankrupt  speculators.  The  fields  will  be  tilled,  and 
country  villages,  almost  hidden  by  trees,  and  vines,  and 
flowers,  filled  with  industrious  and  happy  people,  will  nes 
tle  in  every  vale  and  gleam  like  gems  on  every  plain. 

The  idea  must  be  done  away  with  that  there  is  something 
intellectually  degrading  in  cultivating  the  soil.  Nothing 
can  be  nobl?.  than  to  be  useful.  Idleness  should  not  be 
respectable. 

If  farmers  will  cultivate  well,  and  without  waste ;  if  they 
will  so  build  that  their  houses  will  be  warm  in  winter  and 
cool  in  summer;  if  they  will  plant  trees  and  beautify  their 
homes;  if  they  will  occupy  their  leisure  in  reading,  in 
thinking,  in  improving  their  minds  and  in  devising  ways 


26  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

and  means  to  make  their  business  profitable  and  pleasant; 
if  they  will  live  nearer  together  and  cultivate  sociability; 
if  they  will  come  together  often ;  if  they  will  have  reading 
rooms  and  cultivate  music;  if  they  will  have  bath-rooms, 
ice-houses  and  good  gardens;  if  their  wives  can  have  an 
easy  time;  if  the  nights  can  be  taken  for  sleep  and  the 
evenings  for  enjoyment,  everybody  will  be  in  love  with  the 
fields.  Happiness  should  be  the  object  of  life,  and  if  life 
on  the  farm  can  be  made  really  happy,  the  children  will 
grow  up  in  love  with  the  meadows,  the  streams,  the  woods 
and  the  old  home.  Around  the  farm  will  cling  and  cluster 
the  happy  memories  of  the  delightful  years. 

Remember,  I  pray  you,  that  you  are  in  partnership  with 
all  labor— that  you  should  join  hands  with  all  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  toil,  aud  that  all  who  work  belong  to  the  same 
noble  family. 

For  my  part,  I  envy  the  man  who  has  lived  on  the  same 
broad  acres  from  his  boyhood,  who  cultivates  the  fields 
where  in  youth  he  played,  and  lives  where  his  father  lived 
and  died. 

I  can  imagine  no  sweeter  way  to  end  one's  life  than  in 
the  quiet  of  the  country,  out  of  the  mad  race  for  money, 
place  and  power — far  from  the  demands  of  business — out 
of  the  dusty  highway  where  fools  struggle  and  strive  for 
the  hollow  praise  ot  other  fools. 

Surrounded  by  these  pleasant  fields  and  faithful  friends, 
by  those  I  have  loved,  I  hope  to  end  my  days.  And  this  I 
hope  maybe  the  lot  of  all  who  hear  my  voice.  I  hope  that 
you,  in  the  country,  in  houses  covered  with  vines  and 
clothed  with  flowers,  looking  from  the  open  window  upon 
rustling  fields  of  corn  and  wheat,  over  which  will  run  the 
sunshine  and  the  shadow,  surrounded  by  those  whose  lives 
you  have  tilled  with  joy,  will  pass  away  serenely  as  the 
Autumn  dies. 


IL-COL.  INGERSOLL'S  GREAT  SPEECH  TO  THE 
YETERAN   SOLDIERS. 

DELIVERED    AT    INDIANAPOLIS. 


REASONS    WHY    THE    COLONEL    IS    NOT   A   DEMOCRAT. 
[From  the  Indianapolis  Journal] 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN — FELLOW  CITIZENS  AND  CITIZEN 
SOLDIERS:  I  am  opposed  to  the  Democratic  party,  and  I 
will  tell  jou  why.  Every  .State  that  seceded  from  the 
United  States"*was  a  Democratic  State.  Every  ordinance 
of  secession  that  was  drawn  was  drawn  by  a  Democrat. 
Every  man  that  endeavored  to  tear  the  old  flag  from  the 
heaven  that  it  enriches  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that 
tried  to  destroy  this  nation  was  a  Democrat.  Every  enemy 
this  great  republic  has  had  tor  twenty  years  has  been  a 
Democrat.  Every  man  that  shot  Union  soldiers  was  a 
Democrat.  Every  man  that  starved  Union  soldiers  and 
refused  them  in  the  extremity  of  death,  a  crust,  was  a  Dem 
ocrat.  Every  man  that  loved  slavery  better  than  liberty 
was  a  Democrat.  The  man  that  assassinated  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that  sympathized 
with  the  assassin — every  man  glad  that  the  noblest  Presi 
dent  ever  elected  was  assassinated,  was  a  Democrat.  Every 
man  that  wanted  the  privilege  of  whipping  another  man  to 
make  him  work  for  him  for  nothing  and  pay  him  with  lashes 
on  his  naked  hack,  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that 
raised  blood-hounds  to  pursue  human  beings  was  a  Demo 
crat.  Ever}'  man  that  clutched  from  shrieking,  shuddering, 

27 


28  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

crouching  mothers,  Iwbes  from  tlieir  breasts,  and  sold  them 
into  shivery,  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that  impaired 
the  credit  of  the  United  States,  every  man  that  swore  we 
would  never  pay  the  bonds,  every  man  that  swore  we  would 
never  redeem  the  greenbacks,  every  maligner  of  his  coun 
try's  credit,  every  calumniator  of  his  country's  honor,  was 
a  Democrat.  Every  man  that  resisted  the  draft,  every  mail 
that  hid  in  the  bushes  and  shot  at  Union  men  simply  be 
cause  they  were  endeavoring  to  enforce  the  laws  of  their 
country,  was  a  Democrat.  Every  rn;m  that  wept  over  the 
corpse  of  slavery  was  a  Democrat.  Even*  man  that  cursed 
Lincoln  because  he  issued  the  proclamation  of  emancipation 
— the  grandest  paper  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
— every  one  of  them  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that 
denounced  the  soldiers  that  bared  their  bosoms  to  the  storms 
of  shot  and  shell  for  the  honor  of  America  and  for  the  sacred 
rights  of  man,  was  a  Democrat.  Every  man  that  wanted 
an  uprising  in  the  North,  that  wanted  to  release  the  rebel 
prisoners  that  they  might  burn  down  the  homes  of  Union 
soldiers  above  the  heads  of  their  wives  and  children,  while 
the  brave  husbands,  the  heroic  fathers,  were  in  the  front 
fighting  for  the  honor  of  the  old  flag,  every  one  of  them  was 
a  Democrat.  I  am  not  through  yet.  Every  man  that  be 
lieved  this  glorious  nation  of  ours  is  a  confederacy,  every 
man  that  believed  the  old  banner  carried  by  our  fathers 
through  the  Revolution,  through  the  war  of  1812,  carried 
by  our  brothers  over  the  plains  of  Mexico,  carried  by  our 
brothers  over  the  fields  of  the  rebellion,  simply  stood  for  a 
contract,  simply  stood  for  an  agreement,  was  a  Democrat. 
Every  man  who  believed  that  any  State  could  go  out  of  the 
Union  at  its  pleasure,  every  man  that  believed  the  grand 
fabric  of  the  American  Government  could  be  m«de  to  crum 
ble  instantly  into  dust  at  the  touch  of  treason,  was  a  Dem 
ocrat.  Every  man  that  helped  t<>  burn  orphan  asylums  in 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  2Q 

New  York,  was  a  Democrat ;  every  man  that  tried  to  fire 
the  city  of  New  York,  although  he  knew  that  thousands 
would  perish,  and  knew  that  the  great  serpents  of  flame 
leaping  from  buildings  would  clutch  children  from  their 
mothers'  arms — every  wretch  that  did  it  was  a  Democrat. 
Recollect  it!  Every  man  that  tried  to  spread  small-pox 
and  yellow  fever  in  the  North,  as  the  instrumentalities  of 
civilized  war,  was  a  Democrat.  Soldiers,  every  scar  you 
have  got  on  your  heroic  bodies  was  given  you  by  a  Demo 
crat.  Every  scar,  every  arm  that  is  lacking,  every  limb 
that  is  gone,  every  scar  is  a  souvenir  of  a  Democrat.  I 
want  you  to  recollect  it.  Every  man  that  was  the  enemy 
of  human  liberty  in  this  country  was  a  Democrat.  Every 
man  that  wanted  the  fruit  of  all  the  heroism  of  all  the  ages 
to  turn  to  ashes  upon  the  lips — every  one  was  a  Democrat. 

WHY  THE  COLONEL  IS  A  REPUBLICAN. 

I  am  a  Republican.  I  will  tell  you  why :  This  is  the 
only  free  government  in  the  world.  The  Republican  party 
made  it  so.  The  Republican  party  took  the  chains  from 
4,000,000  of  people.  The  Republican  party,  with  the 
wand  of  progress,  touched  the  auction-block  and  it  became 
a  school-house.  The  Republican  party  put  down  the  re 
bellion,  saved  the  nation,  kept  the  old  banner  afloat  in  the 
air,  and  declared  that  slavery  of  every  kind  should  be  ex 
tirpated  from  the  face  of  the  continent.  What  more?  I 
am  a  Republican  because  it  is  the  only  free  party  that  ever 
existed.  It  is  a  party  that  has  a  platform  as  broad  as  hu 
manity,  a  platform  as  broad  as  the  human  race,  a  party 
that  says  you  shall  have  all  die  fruit  of  the  labor  of  your 
hands,  a  party  that  says  you  may  think  for  yourself;  a 
part'*  that  says  no  chains  for  the  hands,  no  fetters  for  the 
soul.  (A  voice — "Amen."  Cheere.)  At  this  point  the 
rain  began  to  descend,  and  it  looked  as  if  a  heavy  shower 


3O  COL.   INGERSOLLS 

was  impending.  Several  umbrellas  were  put  up.  Gov. 
Noyes — "God  bless  you!  What  is  rain  to  soldiers ?" 
Voice — "Go  ahead;  we  don't  mind  the  rain."  (It  was 
proposed  to  adjourn  the  meeting  to  Masonic  Hall,  but  the 
motion  was  voted  down  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and 
Mr.  Ingersoll  proceeded.)  I  am  a  Republican  because  the 
republican  party  says  this  country  is  a  nation,  and  not  a 
confederacy.  1  am  here  in  Indiana  to  speak,  and  I  have 
as  good  a  right  to  speak  here  in  Indiana  as  though  I  had 
been  born  on  this  stand — not  because  the  State  flag  of  In 
diana  waves  over  me.  I  would  not  know  it  it  I  should  see 
it.  You  have  the  same  right  to  speak  in  Illinois,  not  be 
cause  the  State  flag  of  Illinois  waves  over  you,  but  because 
that  banner,  rendered  sacred  by  the  blood  of  all  the  heroes, 
waves  over  me  and  you.  I  am  in  favor  of  this  being  a  na 
tion.  Think  of  a  man  gratifying  his  entire  ambition  in  the 
State  of  Rhode  Island.  We  want  this  to  be  a  nation,  and 
you  can't  have  a  great,  grand,  splendid  people  without  a 
great,  grand,  splendid  country.  The  great  plains,  the 
sublime  mountains,  the  great  rushing,  roaring  rivers,  shores 
lashed  by  two  oceans,  and  the  grand  anthem  of  Niagara, 
mingle  and  enter,  as  it  were,  in  the  character  of  every 
American  citizen,  and  make  him  or  tend  to  make  him  a 
great  and  a  grand  character.  I  am  for  the  Republican 
party  because  it  says  the  government  has  as  much  right, 
as  much  power  to  protect  its  citizens  at  home  as  abroad. 
The  Il«  publican  party  don't  say  you  have  to  go  away  from 
home  to  get  the  protection  of  the  government.  The  Demo 
cratic  party  says  the  government  can't  march  its  troops 
into  the  South  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  citizens.  It  is  a 
lie.  The  government  claims  the  right,  and  it  is  conceded 
that  tin?  government  has  the  right,  to  go  to  your  house, 
while  you  are  sitting  !>y  your  iircfide  with  your  wife  and 
children  about  you,  and  the  old  lady  knitting,  and  the  cat 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  3  I 

playing  with  the  .yarn,  and  everybody  happy  and  sweet — 
the  government  claims  the  right  to  go  to  your  fireside  and 
take  yon  by  force  and  put  you  into  the  army :  take  you 
down  to  the  valley  and  the  shadow  of  hell,  set  you  by  the 
ruddy,  roaring  guns,  and  make  you  fight  for  your  flag. 
Now,  that  being  so,  when  the  war  is  over  and  your  country 
is  victorious,  and  you  go  back  to  your  home,  and  a  lot  of 
Democrats  want  to  trample  upon  your  rights,  I  want  to 
know  if  the  government  that  took  you  from  your  fireside 
and  made  you  fight  for  it,  I  want  to  know  if  it  is  not  bound 
to  fight  fop  you.  The  flag  that  will  not  protect  its  pro 
tectors  is  a  dirt;;  rag  that  contaminates  the  air  in  which  it 
waves.  The  government  that  will  not  defend  its  defenders 
is  a  disgrace  to  the  nations  of  the  world.  I  am  a  Republi 
can  because  the  Republican  party  says,  "  We  will  protect 
the  rights  of  American  citizens  at  home,  and  if  necessary 
we  will  march  an  army  into  any  State  to  protect  the  rights 
of  the  humblest  American  citizen  in  that  State."  I  am  a 
Republican  because  tint  party  allows  me  to  be  free — allows 
me  to  do  my  own  thinking  in  my  own  way.  I  am  a  Re 
publican  because  it  is  a  party  grand  enough  and  splendid 
enough  and  sublime  enough  to  invite  every  human  being 
in  favor  of  liberty  and  progress  to  fight  shoulder  to  shoul 
der  tor  the  advancement  of  mankind.  It  invites  the  Meth 
odist;  it  invites  the  Catholic;  it  invites  the  Presbyterian 
and  every  kintJ  of  sectarian;  it  invites  the  free-thinker;  it 
invites  the  inti  lei.  provided  he  is  in  favor  of  giving  to  every 
other  human  being  every  chance  and  every  right  that  he 
claims  for  himself.  I  am  a  Republican,  I  tell  you.  There 
is  room  in  the  Republican  air  for  every  wing;  there  is 
room  on  the  Republican  sea  for  every  sail.  Republicanism 
says  to  every  man  :  "Let  your  soul  bf  like  an  eagle;  fly 
out  in  the  ureat  doni"  of  thought,  an  i  question  the  stars 
for  yourself.15  But  the  Democratic  party  says:  4kBe  blind 


32  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

owls;  sit  on  the  dry  limb  of  a  dead  tree,  and  only  hoot 
when  Tilden  &  Co.  tell  you  to." 

In  the  Republican  party  there  are  no  followers.  We  are 
all  leaders.  There  is  not  a  party  chain.  There  is  not  a 
party  lash.  Any  man  that  does  not  love  this  country,  any 
man  that  does  not  love  liberty,  any  man  that  is  not  in  favor 
of  human  progress,  that  is  not  in  favor  of  giving  to  others 
all  he  claims  for  himself;  we  don't  ask  him  to  vote  the 
Republican  ticket.  You  can  vote  it  if  you  please,  and  if 
there  is  any  Democrat  within  hearing  who  expects  to  die 
before  another  election,  we  are  willing  that  he  should  vote 
one  Republican  ticket,  simply  as  a  consolation  upon  his 
death-bed.  What  more?  I  am  a  Republican  because  that 
party  believes  in  free  labor,  It  believes  that  free  labor 
will  give  us  wealth.  It  believes  in  free  thought,  because  it 
believes  that  free  thought  will  give  us  truth.  You  don't 
know  what  a  grand  party  you  belong  to.  I  never  want  any 
holier  or  grander  title  of  nobility  than  that  I  belong  to  the 
Republican  party  and  have  fought  for  the  liberty  of  man. 
The  Republican  party,  I  say,  believes  in  free  labor.  The 
Republican  party  also  believes  in  slavery.  What  kind  of 
slavery  ?  In  enslaving  the  forces  of  nature. 

We  believe  that  free  labor,  that  free  thought,  have  en 
slaved  the  forces  of  nature,  and  made  them  work  for  man. 
We  make  old  attraction  of  gravitation  work  for  us;  we 
make  the  lightning  do  our  errands ;  we  make  steam  ham 
mer  and  fashion  what  we  need.  The  forces  of  nature  are 
the  slaves  of  the  Republican  party.  They  have  got  no  backs 
to  I  e  whipped  ;  they  have  got  no  hearts  to  be  torn — no 
hearts  to  be  broken  ;  they  cannot  be  separated  from  their 
wives;  they  cannot  be  dragged  from  the  bosoms  of  their 
husbands  ;  they  wo  k  night  and  day  and  they  cannot  tire. 
You  cannot  whip  tiiern,  you  cannot  starve  them,  and  a 
Democrat  even  can  be  trusted  with  one  of  them.  I  tell 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  33 

you  I  am  a  Republican.  I  believe,  as  I  told  you,  that 
free  labor  will  give  us  these  slaves.  Free  labor  will 
produce  all  these  things,  and  everything  you  have  got 
to-day  has  been  produced  by  free  labor,  nothing  by  slave 
labor. 

Slavery  never  invented  but  one  machine,  and  that  was  a 
threshing-machine  in  the  shape  of  a  whip.  Free  labor  has 
invented  all  the  machines.  We  want  to  come  down  to  the 
philosophy  of  these  things.  The  problem  of  free  .labor, 
when  a  man  works  for  the  wife  he  loves,  when  he  works 
for  the  little  children  he  adores — the  problem  is  to  do  the 
most  work  in  the  shortest  space  of  time.  The  problem  of 
slavery  is  to  do  the  least  work  in  the  longest  space  of  time. 
That  is  the  difference.  Free  labor,  love,  affection — they 
have  invented  everything  of  use  in  this  world.  I  aoi  a 
Republican. 

I  tell  you,  my  friends,  this  world  is  getting  better  every 
day,  and  the  Democratic  party  is  getting  smaller  every  day. 
See  the  advancement  we  have  made  in  a  few  years,  see  what 
we  have  done.  We  have  covered  this  nation  with  wealth, 
and  glory,  and  with  liberty.  This  is  the  first  free  govern 
ment  in  the  world.  The  Republican  party  is  the  first  party 
that  was  not  founded  on  some  compromise  with  the  devil. 
It  is  the  first  party  of  pure,  square,  honest  principle ;  the 
first  one.  And  we  have  got  the  first  free  country  that  ever 
existed. 

And  right  here  I  want  to  thank  every  soldier  that 
fought  to  make  it  free,  every  one  living  and  dead.  I 
want  to  thank  you  again,  and  again,  and  again.  You  made 
the  first  free  government  in  the  world,  and  we  must  not 
forget  the  dead  heroes.  If  they  were  here  they  would  vote 
the  Republican  ticket,  every  one  of  them.  I  tell  you  we 
must  not  forget  them. 


34  COL.  INGERSOLLS 

COL.  INGERSOLL'S  REMARKABLE  VISION — ONE  OF  THE  MOST 
ELOQUENT  EXTRACTS  IN  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

The  past,  as  it  were,  rises  before  me  like  a  dream.  Again 
we  are  in  the  great  struggle  for  national  life.  We  hear  the 
sound  of  preparation — the  music  of  the  boisterous  drums — 
the  silver  voices  of  heroic  bugles.  We  see  thou-ands  of 
assemblages,  and  hear  the  appeals  of  orators ;  we  see  the 
pale  cheeks  of  women,  and  the  flushed  faces  of  men  ;  and 
in  those  assemblages  we  see  all  the  dead  whoso  dust  we 
have  covered  with  flowers.  We  lose  sight  of  them  no 
more.  We  are  with  them  when  they  enlist  in  the  great 
army  of  freedom.  We  see  them  part  with  those  they  love. 
Some  are  walking  for  the  last  time  in  quiet  woody  places 
with  the  maidens  they  adore.  We  hear  the  whisperings 
and  the  sweet  vovvs  of  eternal  love  as  they  lingeringly 
part  forever.  Others  are  bending  over  cradles  kissing 
babes  that  are  asleep.  Some  are  receiving  the  blessings  of 
old  men.  Some  are  parting  with  mothers  who  hold  them 
and  press  them  to  their  hearts  again  and  again,  and  say 
nothing  ;  and  some  are  talking  with  wives,  and  endeavoring 
with  brave  words  spoken  in  the  old  tones  to  drive  away  the 
awful  fear.  We  see  them  part.  We  see  the  wife  standing 
in  the  door  with  the  babe  in  her  arms — standing  in  the  sun 
light  sobbing — at  the  turn  of  the  road  a  hand  waves — she 
answers  by  holding  high  in  her  loving  hands  the  child.  He 
is  gone,  and  forever. 

We  see  them  all  as  they  march  proudly  away  under  the 
fl  uniting  flags,  keeping  time  to  the  wild  grand  music  of 
war — marching  down  the  streets  of  the  great  cities — through 
the  towns  and  across  the  prairies — down  to  the  iields  of 
glory,  to  do  and  t>  <lie  for  the  eternal  right. 

We  go  with  them  one  and  all.  We  are  by  their  side  on 
all  the  gory  fields,  in  all  the  hospitals  of  pain — on  all  the 


THREE   GREAT  SPEECHES.  $ 

weary  marches.  We  stand  guard  with  them  in  the  wild 
storm  and  un'irr  the  qnii-t  stars.  We  are  with  them  in 
ravines  running  with  blood — in  the  farrows  of  old  fields. 
We  are  with  them  between  contending  hosts,  unable  to 
move,  wild  with  thirst,  the  life  ebbing  slowly  away  among 
the  withered  leaves.  We  see  them  pierced  by  balls  and 
torn  with  shells  in  the  trenches  of  forts,  and  in  the  whirl 
wind  of  the  charge,  where  men  become  iron  with  nerves 
of  steel. 

We  are  with  them  in  the  prisons  of  hatred  and  famine, 
but  human  speech  can  never  tell  what  they  endured. 

We  are  at  home  when  the  news  comes  that  they  are  dead. 
We  see  the  maiden  in  the  shadow  of  her  sorrow.  We  see 
the  silvered  head  of  the  old  man  bowed  with  the  last  grief. 

The  past  rises  before  us,  and  we  see  four  millions  of 
human  beings  governed  by  the  lash — we  see  them  bound 
hand  and  foot — we  hear  the  strokes  of  cruel  whips — we  see 
the  hounds  tracking  women  through  tangled  swamps.  We 
see  babes  sold  from  the  breasts  of  mothers.  Cruelty  un 
speakable!  Outrage  infinite! 

Four  million  bodies  in  chains — four  million  souls  in  fetters. 
All  the  sacred  relations  of  wife,  mother,  father  and  child, 
trampled  beneath  the  brutal  feet  of  might.  And  all  this 
was  done  under  our  own  beautiful  banner  of  the  free. 

The  past  rises  before  us.  We  hear  the  roar  and  shriek  of 
the  bursting  shell.  The  broken  fetters  fall.  Tliere  heroes 
died.  We  look.  Instead  of  slaves  we  see  men  and 
women  and  children.  The  wand  of  progress  touches  the 
auction-block,  the  slave-pen,  and  the  whipping-post,  and  we 
see  homes  and  firesides,  and  school  houses  and  books,  and 
where  all  was  want  and  crime,  and  cruelty  and  fear,  we  see 
the  faces  of  the  free. 

These  heroes  are  dead.  They  died  for  liberty — they 
died  for  us.  They  are  at  rest.  They  sleep  in  the  laud  they 


36  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

made  free,  under  the  flag  they  rendered  stainless,  under 
the  solemn  pines,  the  sad  hemlocks,  the  tearful  willows, 
the  embracing  vines.  They  sleep  beneath  the  shadows  of 
the  clouds,  careless  alike  of  sunshine  or  storm,  each  in  the 
windowless  palace  of  rest.  Earth  may  run  red  with  other 
wars — they  are  at  peace.  In  the  midst  of  battle,  in  the 
roar  of  conflict,  they  found  the  serenity  of  death.  I  have 
one  sentiment  for  the  soldiers  living  and  dead — cheers  for 
the  living  and  tears  for  the  dead. 

MORE    SOLID    SHOT. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  have  given  you  a  few  reasons  why  I 
am  a  Republican.  I  have  given  you  a  few  reasons  why  I 
am  not  a  Democrat.  Let  me  say  another  thing.  The 
Democratic  party  opposed  every  movement  of  the  army  of 
the  Republic,  every  one.  Don't  be  fooled.  Imagine  the 
meanest  resolution  that  you  can  think  of — that  is  the  reso 
lution  the  Democratic  party  passed.  Imagine  the  meanest 
thing  you  can  think  of — that  is  what  they  did  ;  and  I  want 
you  to  recollect  that  the  Democratic  party  did  these  devilish 
things  when  the  fate  of  this  nation  was  trembling  in  the 
balance  of  war.  I  want  you  to  recollect  another  thing: 
when  they  tell  you  about  hard  times,  that  the  Democratic 
party  made  the  hard  times ;  that  every  dollar  we  owe  to 
day  was  made  by  the  Southern  and  Northern  Democracy. 

When  we  commenced  to  put  down  the  rebellion  we  had 
to  borrow  money,  and  the  Democratic  party  went  into  the 
markets  of  the  world  and  impaired  the  credit  of  the  United 
States.  They  slandered,  they  lied,  they  maligned  the 
credit  of  the  United  States,  and  to  such  an  extent  did  they 
do  this,  that  at  one  time  during  the  war  paper  was  only 
worth  about  34  cents  on  the  dollar.  Gold  went  up  to  $2.90. 
What  did  that  mean  ?  It  meant  that  greenbacks  were  worth 


THREE    GREAT   LECTURES.  37 

34  cents  on  the  dollar.  What  became  of  the  other  66 
cents  ?  They  were  lied  out  of  the  greenbacks,  they  were 
calumniated  out  of  the  greenbacks,  by  the  Democratic 
party  of  the  North.  Two-thirds  of  the  debt,  •  two-thirds  of 
tiie  burden  now  upon  the  shoulders  of  American  industry, 
were  placed  there  by  the  slanders  of  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  North,  and  the  other  third  by  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  South.  And  when  you  pay  your  taxes  keep  an 
account  and  charge  two-thirds  to  the  Northern  Democracy 
and  one-third  to  the  Southern  Democracy,  and  whenever 
you  have  to  earn  the  money  to  pay  the  taxes,  when  you 
have  to  blister  your  hands  to  earn  that  money,  pull  off  the 
blisters,  and  under  each  one,  as  the  foundation,  you  will 
find  a  Democratic  lie. 

Recollect  that  the  Democratic  party  did  all  the  things  of 
which  I  have  told  you,  when  the  fate  of  our  nation  was 
submitted  to  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword.  Recollect  they 
did  these  things  when  your  husbands,  your  fathers,  your 
brothers,  your  chivalric  sons  were  fighting,  bleeding,  suffer 
ing  upon  the  fields  of  the  South,  where  shot  and  shell  were 
crashing  through  their  sacred  flesh,  where  they  were  lying 
upon  the  field  of  battle,  the  blood  slowly  oozing  from  the 
pallid,  mangled  lips  of  death;  when  they  were  in  the  hos 
pitals  of  pain,  dreaming  broken  dreams  of  home,  and 
seeing  fever  pictures  of  the  ones  they  loved ;  when  they 
were  in  the  prison  pens  of  the  South,  with  no  covering  but 
the  clouds,  no  bed  except  the  frozen  earth,  no  food  except 
such  as  worms  had  refused  to  eat,  and  no  friends  except 
insanity  and  death.  Recollect  it.  I  have  often  said  that 
1  wished  there  were  words  of  pure  hatred  out  of  which  I 
might  construct  sentences  like  serpents,  sentences  like 
snakes,  sentences  that  would  writhe  and  hiss — I  could  then 
give  my  opinion  of  the  Northern  allies  of  the  Southern 
rebels. 


38  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

THREE    IMPORTANT   QUESTIONS    ANSWERED. 

There  are  three  questions  now  submitted  to  the  American 
people.  The  tirst  is,  Shall  the  people  that  saved  this 
country  rule  it?  Shall  the  men  who  saved  the  old  flag  hold 
it?  Shall  the  men  who  saved  the  ship  of  State  sail  it?  or 
shall  the  rebels  walk  her  quarter-deck,  give  the  orders  and 
sink  it.  That  is  the  question.  Shall  a  solid  South,  a  united 
South,  united  by  assassination  and  murder,  a  South  solidi 
fied  by  the  shot-gun  ;  shall  a  united  South,  with  the  aid  of 
a  divided  North,  shall  they  control  this  great  and  splendid 
country  ?  Well,  then  the  North  must  wake  up.  We  are 
right  back  where  we  were  in  1861.  This  is  simply  a  pro 
longation  of  the  war.  This  is  the  war  of  the  idea,  the  other 
was  the  war  of  the  musket.  The  other  was  the  war  of 
cannon,  this  is  the  war  of  thought;  and  we  have  got  to 
beat  them  in  this  war  of  thought,  recollect  that.  The  ques 
tion  is,  Shall  the  men  who  endeavored  to  destroy  this 
country  rule  it?  Shall  the  men  that  said,  This  is  not  a 
nation,  have  charge  of  the  nation? 

The  next  question  is,  Shall  we  pay  our  debts?  We  had 
to  borrow  some  money  to  pay  for  shot  and  shell  to  shoot 
Democrats  with.  We  found  that  we  could  get  along  with 
a  few  less  Democrats,  but  not  with  any  less  country,  and 
so  we  borrowed  the  money,  and  the  question  now  is,  will 
we  pay  it?  And  which  party  is  the  most  apt  to  pay  it,  the 
Republican  party,  that  made  the  debt — the  party  that  swore 
it  was  constitutional,  or  the  party  that  said  it  was  unconsti 
tutional  ?  Whenever  a  Democrat  sees  a  greenback,  the 
greenback  says  to  the  Democrat,  "  I  am  one  of  the  fellows 
that  whipped  you.'1  Whenever  a  Republican  sees  a  green 
back,  the  greenback  says  to  him,  "You  and  1  put  down 
the  rebellion  and  saved  the  country."  Now,  my  friends, 
you  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  finances.  Nearly  every- 


THREE    GREAT    SPEECHES.  39 

body  that  talks  about  it  gets  as  dry as  if  they  had  been 

in  the  final  home  of  the  Democratic  party  for  forty  years. 

INGERSOLL    ON   THE   MONEY    QUESTION. 

I  will  give  yon  my  ideas  about  finances.  In  the  first 
place  the  government  don't  support  the  people  ;  the  people 
support  the  government.  The  government  passes  around 
the  hat,  the  government  passes  around  the  alms  dish. 
True  enough,  it  has  a  musket  behind  it,  but  it  is  a  perpetual, 
chronic  pauper.  It  passes,  I  told  you,  the  alms-dish,  and 
we  all  throw  in  our  share — except  Tilden.  This  govern 
ment  is  a  perpetual  consumer.  You  understand  me,  the 
government  don't  plow  ground,  the  government  don't 
raise  corn  and  wheat;  the  government  is  simply  a  perpetual 
consumer;  we  support  the  government.  Now,  the  idea 
that  the  government  can  make  money  for  you  and  I  to  live 
on — why.  it  is  the  same  as  though  my  hired  man  should 
issue  certificates  of  my  indebtedness  to  him  for  me  to 
live  on. 

Some  people  tdl  me  that  the  government  can  impress  its 
sov<  reii>nty  on  a  piece  of  paper,  and  that  is  money.  Well, 
if  it  is,  what's  the  use  of  wasting  it  making  one  dollar  bills? 
It  takes  no  more  ink  and  no  more  paper — why  not  make 
$1000  bills?  Why  not  make  $100,000,000  bills  and  all  be 
billionaires  ? 

If  the  government  can  make  money,  what  on  earth  does 
it  collect  taxes  from  yo:i  and  me  for?  Why  don't  it  make 
what  money  it  wants,  take  the  taxes  out,  and  give  the 
balance  to  us?  Mr.  Greenbacker,  suppose  the  government 
issued  $1,000,000,000  to-morrow,  how  would  you  get  any 
of  it?  (A  voice — Steal  it)  I  was  not  speaking  to  the 
Democrats. —  You  would  not  get  any  of  it  unless  you  had 
something  to  exchange  for  it.  The  government  would  not 


4-O  COL.    INGERSOLLS 

go  around  and  give  you  your  average.  You  have  to  have 
some  corn,  or  wheat,  or  pork  to  give  for  it. 

How  do  you  get  your  money  ?  By  work.  Where  irom  ? 
You  have  to  dig  it  out  of  the  ground.  That  is  wLu  >  it 
comes  from.  In  old  times  there  were  some  men  -  bo  th  .^b.fc 
they  could  get  some  way  to  turn  the  baser  metalb  l^lo  g  Jd. 
and  old  gray-haired  men,  trembling,  tottering  on  the  verge 
of  the  grave,  were  hunting  for  something  to  turn  ordinary 
rnetals  into  gold;  they  were  searching  for  the  fountain  of 
eternal  youth,  but  they  did  not  find  it.  No  human  ear  has 
ever  heard  the  silver  gurgle  of  the  spring  of  immortal 
youth. 

There  used  to  be  mechanics  that  tried  to  make  perpetual 
motion  by  combinations  of  wheels,  shifting  weights,  and 
rolling  balls ;  but  somehow  the  machine  would  never  quite 
run.  A  perpetual  fountain  of  greenbacks,  of  wealth  with 
out  labor,  is  just  as  foolish  as  a  fountain  of  eternal  youth. 
The  idea  that  you  can  produce  money  without  labor  is  just 
as  foolish  as  the  idea  of  perpetual  motion.  They  are  old 
follies  under  new  names. 

Let  me  tell  you  another  thing.  The  Democrats  seem  to 
think  that  you  can  fail  to  keep  a  promise  so  long  that  it  is 
as  good  as  though  you  had  kept  it.  They  say  you  can 
stamp  the  sovereignty  of  the  government  upon  paper.  The 
other  day  I  saw  a  piece  of  silver  bearing  the  sorereign 
stamp  of  Julius  Caesar.  Julius  Caesar  lias  been  dnst  about 
two  thousand  years,  but  that  piece  of  silver  was  worth  just 
as  much  as  though  Julius  Caesar  was  at  the  head  of  the 
Roman  legions.  Was  it  his  sovereignty  that  made  it  valu 
able  ?  Suppose  he  had  put  it  upon  a  piece  of  paper — it 
would  have  been  of  no  more  value  than  a  Democratic 
promise. 

Another  thing,  my  friends,  this  debt  will  be  paid  ;  you 
need  not  worry  about  that.  The  Democrats  ought  to  pay 


THREE    GREAT    SPEECHES.  4! 

it.  They  lost  the  suit  and  they  ought  to  pay  the  costs. 
But  we  are  willing  to  pay  our  share.  It  will  be  paid.  The 
holder;-;  of  the  debt  have  got  a  mortgage  on  a  continent. 
They  have  a  mortgage  on  the  honor  of  the  Republican 
party,  and  it  is  on  record.  Every  blade  of  gr..3S  that 
grows  upon  tulc  continent  is  a  guarantee  that  the  debt  will 
be  paid  ;  every  field  of  bannered  corn  in  the  great,  glorious 
West  is  a  guarantee  that  the  debt  will  be  paid  ;  all  the  coal 
put  u7:°y  in  the  ground  millions  of  years  ago  by  that  old 
miser,  the  sun,  is  a  guarantee  that  every  dollar  of  that  debt 
will  be  paid ;  all  the  cattle  on  the  prairies,  pastures  and 
plains,  every  one  of  them  is  a  guarantee  that  this  debt  will 
be  paid  ;  every  pine  standing  in  the  somber  forests  of  the 
North,  waiting  for  the  woodman 'a  ax,  is  a  guarantee  that 
this  debt  will  be  paid ;  all  the  gold  and  silver  hid  in  the 
Siei~a  Nevadas,  waiting  for  the  miner's  pick,  is  a  guaran 
tee  th\t  the  debt  will  be  paid  ;  every  locomotive,  with  its 
ii-usclei.  of  iron  and  breath  of  flame,  and  all  the  boys  and 
girls  bendini;  over  their  books  at  school,  every  dimpled 
^hild  in  the  cradle,  every  good  man  and  every  good  woman, 
and  every  man  that  votes  the  Republican  ticket  is  r»  guar 
antee  that  the  debt  will  be  oaid. 

MORE    ELOQUENCE. 

What  is  the  next  question  ?  The  next  question  is,  will 
we  protect  the  Union  men  in  the  South  ?  I  tell  you  the 
white  Union  men  have  suffered  enough.  It  is  a  crime  in 
tha  Southern  States  to  be  a  Republican.  It  is  a  crime  in 
every  Southern  State  to  love  this  country,  to  believe  in  the 
sacred  rights  of  men. 

I  tell  you  the  colored  people  have  suffered  enough.  They 
have  been  owned  by  Democrats  for  two  hundred  years. 
Worse  than  that:  they  have  been  forced  to  keep  the  com 
pany  of  their  owners.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  live  with  a 


42       .  COL.    IXGERSOLLS 

man  that  steals  from  yon.  They  have  suffered  enough. 
For  two  hundred  years  they  were  branded  like  cuttle.  Yes, 
for  two  hundred  years  every  human  tie  was  torn  asunder 
by  the  cruel  hand  of  avarice  and  greed.  For  two  hundred 
years  children  were  sold  from  their  mothers,  husbands  from 
their  wives,  brothers  from  brothers,  and  sisters  from  sis 
ters.  There  was  not  during  the  whole  rebellion  a  single 
negro  that  was  not  our  friend.  We  are  willing  to  be  recon 
ciled  to  our  Southern  brethren  when  they  will  treat  our 
friends  as  men.  When  the}'  will  be  just  to  the  friends  of 
this  country;  when  they  are  in  favor  of  allowing  every 
American  citizen  to  have  his  rights — then  we  are  their 
friends.  We  are  willing  to  trust  them  with  the  Nation 
when  they  are  the  friends  of  the  Nation.  We  are  willing 
to  trust  them  with  liberty  when  they  believe  in  liberty.  We 
are  willing  to  trust  them  with  the  black  man  when  they 
cease  riding  in  the  darkness  of  night — those  masked 
wretches — to  the  hut  of  the  freed  man,  and  notwithstanding 
the  prayers  and  supplications  of  his  family,  shoot  him  down; 
when  they  cease  to  consider  the  massacre  of  Hamburg  as  a 
Democratic  triumph,  then.  I  say,  we  will  be  their  friends, 
And  not  before. 

Now,  my  friends,  thousands  of  the  Southern  people,  and 
thousands  of  the  Northern  Democrats,  are  afraid  that  the 
negroes  are  going  to  pass  them  in  the  race  for  life.  And, 
Mr.  Democrat,  he  will  do  it  unless  you  attend  to  your  busi 
ness.  The  fsimple  fact  that  you  are  white  cannot  save  you 
always.  You  have  got  to  be  industrious,  honest,  to  culti 
vate  a  justice.  If  you  don't  the  colored  race  will  pass  you, 
as  sure  as  you  live.  I  am  for  giving  every  man  a  chance. 
Anybody  that  can  pass  me  is  welcome. 

I  believe,  my  friends,  that  the  intellectual  domain  of  the 
future,  like  the  hind  used  to  be  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  is 
open  to  pre-emption.  The  fellow  that  gets  a  fact  first,  that 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  43 

is  his  ;  that  gets  an  idea  first,  that  is  his.  Every  round  in 
the  ladder  of  fame,  from  the  ono  that  touches  the  ground 
to  the  last  one  that  leans  against  the  shining  summit  of 
ambition,  belongs  to  the  foot  that  gets  upon  it  first. 

Mr.  Democrat, — I  point  down  because  they  are  nearly  all 
on  the  first  round  of  the  ladder, — if  you  can't  climb,  stand 
one  side  and  let  the  deserving  negro  pass. 

INGERSOLL'S  BIO  HORSE-RACE. 

I  must  tell  you  one  thing.  I  have  told  it  so  much,  and 
you  have  all  heard  it,  I  have  no  doubt,  fifty  times  from 
others,  but  I  am  going  to  tell  it  again  because  I  like  it. 

Suppose  there  was  a  great  horse-race  here  to-day,  free  to 
every  horse  in  the  world,  and  to  all  the  mules,  and  all  the 
scrubs,  and  all  the  donkeys.  At  the  tap  of  the  drum  they 
come  to  the  line,  and  the  judges  say  "it  is  a  go."  Let  me 
ask  you,  what  does  the  blooded  horse,  rushing  ahead,  with 
nostrils  distended,  drinking  in  the  breath  of  his  own  swift 
ness,  with  his  mane  flying  like;  oanner  of  victory,  with  his 
veins  standing  out  all  over  him,  is  if  a  net  of  life  had  been 
cast  around  him — with  his  thin  i  sck,  his  high  withers,  his 
tremulous  flanks — what  does  he  care  how  many  mules  and 
donkeys  run  on  that  track?  But  the  Democratic  scruo, 
with  his  chuckle  head  and  lop-ears,  with  his  tail  full  of 
cuckle-burs,  jumping  high  and  short,  and  digging  in  the 
ground  when  he  feels  the  breath  of  the  coining  mule  on  his 
cuckle-bur  tail,  he  is  the  chap  that  jumps  the  track  and 
says,  "I  am  down  on  mule  equality." 

My  friends,  the  Republican  party  is  the  blooded  horse  in 
this  race. 

I  stood,  a  little  while  ago,  in  the  city  of  Paris,  where 
stood  the  Bastile,  where  now  stands  the  column  of  July, 
surmounted  by  the  figure  of  liberty.  In  its  right  hand  is  a 
broken  chain,  in  its  left  hand  a  banner ;  upon  its  shining 


44  COL.   INGERSOLLS 

forehead  a  glittering  star — and  as  I  looked  upon  it  I  said, 
such  is  the  Republican  party  of  my  country.  The  other  day 
going  along  the  road  I  came  to  the  place  where  the  road 
had  been  changed,  but  the  guide-board  was  as  thoy  had 
put  it  twenty  years  before.  It  pointed  diligently  in  the 
direction  of  a  desolate  field.  Now,  that  guide-post  had  been 
there  for  twenty  years.  Thousands  of  people  passed,  but 
nobody  heeded  the  hand  on  the  guide-post,  and  it  stuck 
there  through  storm  and  shine,  and  it  pointed  as  hard  as 
ever  as  if  the  road  was  through  the  desolate  field  ;  and  I 
said  to  myself,  such  is  the  Democratic  party  of  the  United 
States. 

The  other  day  I  came  to  a  river  where  there  had  been  a 
mill ;  a  part  of  it  was  there  yet.  An  old  sign  said,  "  Cash 
for  wheat."  The  old  water-wheel  was  broken,  and  it  had 
been  warped  by  the  sun,  cracked  and  split  by  many  winds 
and  storms.  There  hadn't  been  a  grain  of  wheat  ground 
there  for  twenty  years.  rr'iere  was  nothing  in  good  order 
but  the  dam  ;  it  was  as  ood  a  dam  as  ever  I  saw,  and  I 
said  to  myself,  "such  is  .lie  Democratic  party."  I  was 
going  along  the  road  the  >ther  day,  when  I  came  to  where 
there  had  once  been  a  hotel.  r>ut  the  hotel  and  barn  had 
burned  down  ;  nothing  remained  but  the  two  chimneys, 
monuments  of  the  disaster.  In  the  road  there  was  an  old 
sign,  upon  which  were  these  words:  "Entertainment  for 
man  and  beast."  The  word  "man"  was  nearly  burned 
out.  There  hadn't  been  a  hotel  there  for  thirty  years. 
That  sign  had  swung  and  creaked  in  the  wind  ;  the  snow 
had  fallen  upon  it  in  the  winter,  the  birds  had  sung  upon  it 
in  the  summer.  Nobody  ever  stopped  at,  that  hotel ;  but 
the  sign  stuck  to  it  and  kept  swearing  to  it,  "Entertain 
ment  for  man  and  beast,"  and  I  said  to  myself,  "Such  is 
the  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States." 

Now,  my  friends,  I  want  you  to  vote  the   Republican 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  45 

ticket.  I  want  you  to  swear  you  will  not  vote  for  a  man 
who  opposed  putting  down  the  rebellion.  I  want  you  to 
swear  that  you  will  not  vote  for  a  man  opposed  to  the  utter 
abolition  cf  slavery.  I  want  you  to  swear  that  you  will 
not  vote  for  a  man  who  called  the  soldiers  in  the  field  Lin 
coln  hirelings.  I  want  you  to  swear  that  you  will  not  vote 
for  a  man  who  denounced  Lincoln  as  a  tyrant.  I  want  you 
to  swear  that  you  will  not  vote  for  any  enemy  of  human 
progress.  Go  and  talk  to  every  Democrat  that  you  can 
see ;  get  him  by  the  coat-collar,  talk  to  him,  and  hold  him 
like  Coleridge's  Ancient  mariner,  with  }Tour  glittering  eye; 
hold  him,  tell  him  all  the  moan  things  his  party  ever  did  ; 
tell  him  kindly ;  tell  him  in  a  Christian  spirit,  as  I  do,  but 
tell  him.  Recollect  there  never  was  a  more  important 
election  than  the  one  you  are  going  to  hold  in  Indiana.  I 
want  you  every  one  to  swear  that  you  will  vote  for  glorious 
Ben  Harrison.  I  tell  you  we  must  stand  by  the  country. 
It  is  a  glorious  country.  It  permits  you  and  me  to  be  free. 
It  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  where  labor  is  respected. 
Let  us  support  it.  It  is  the  only  country  in  the  world 
where  the  useful  man  is  the  only  aristocrat.  The  man  that 
works  for  a  dollar  a  day,  goes  home  at  night  to  his  little 
ones,  taking  his  little  boy  on  his  knee,  and  he  thinks  that 
boy  can  achieve  anything  that  the  sons  of  the  wealthy  man 
can  achieve.  The  free  schools  are  open  to  him ;  he  may 
be  the  richest,  the  greatest,  and  the  grandest,  and  that 
thought  sweetens  every  drop  of  sweat  that  rolls  down  the 
honest  face  of  toil.  Yote  to  save  that  country. 

INGERSOLL'S  BEAUTIFUL  DREAM. 

MY  friends,  this  country  is  getting  better  every  day. 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  says  we  are  a  nation  of  thieves. and  ras 
cals  It'  th^t  is  so  he  ought  to  be  the  President.  But  I 
denounce  him  as  a  calumniator  of  my  country;  a  maligner 


46  COL,  INGERSOLL'S 

of  this  nation.  It  is  not  so.  This  country  is  covered  with  asy 
lums  for  the  aged,  the  helpless,  the  insane,  the  orphan,  wound 
ed  soldiers.  Thieves  and  rascals  don't  build  such  things. 
In  the  cities  of  the  Atlantic  coast  this  summer,  they  built 
floating  hospitals,  great  ships,  and  took  the  little  children 
from  the  sub-cellars  and  narrow,  dirty  streets  of  New  York 
city,  where  the  Democratic  party  is  the  strongest, — took 
these  poor  waifs  and  put  them  in  these  great  hospitals  out  at 
sea,  and  let  the  breezes  of  ocean  kiss  the  roses  of  he  dth 
back  to  their  pallid  cheeks.  Rascals  and  thieves  do  not  do 
so.  When  Chicago  burned,  railroads  were  blocked  with 

^-*  * 

the  charity  of  the  American  ueople.  Thieves  and  rascals 
did  riot  do  so. 

I  am  a  Republican.  The  world  is  getting  better.  Hus 
bands  are  treating  their  wives  better  than  they  used  to; 
wives  are  treating  their  husbands  better.  Children  are 
better  treated  than  they  used  to  be  ;  the  old  whips  and  gods 
are  out  of  the  schools,  and  they  are  governing  children  by 
love  and  by  sense.  The  world  is  getting  better;  it  is  get 
ting  better  in  Maine.  It  has  got  better  in  Maine,  in  Ver 
mont.  It  is  getting  hotter  in  every  State  of  the  North. 

I  have  a  dream  that  this  world  is  growing  better  and  bet 
ter  every  day  and  every  year ;  that  there  is  more  charity, 
more  justice,  more  love  every  day.  I  have  a  dream  that 
prisons  will  not  always  curse  the  earth  ;  that  the  shadow 
of  the  gallows  will  not  always  fall  on  the  land  ;  that  the 
withered  hand  of  want  will  not  always  be  stretched  out  for 
charity  ;  that  tinally  wisdom  will  sit  in  the  legislature,  just 
ice  in  the  courts,  charity  will  occupy  all  the  pulpits,  and 
that  tinally  the  world  will  be  controlled  by  liberty  and  love, 
by  justice  and  charity.  That  is  my  dream,  and  if  it  does 
not  come  true,  it  shall  not  be  my  fault.  Good-bye.  (Im 
meuse  and  prolonged  cheering.) 


III.— COL.  INGERSOLL'S  GREAT  SPEECH  ON  THR 
DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


THE   GRANDEST    OF    DOCUMENTS. 


[From  the  Indianapolis 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pt-ndence  is  the  grandest,  the  bravest,  and  the  profonndest 
political  document  that  was  ever  signed  by  the  represent 
atives  of  the  people.  It  is  the  embodiment  of  physical  and 
moral  courage  and  of  political  wisdom. 

I  say  physical  courage,  because  it  was  a  declaration  of 
war  against  the  most  powerful  nation  then  on  the  globe;  a 
declaration  of  war  by  thirteen  weak,  unorganized  colonies; 
a  declaration  of  war  by  a  few  people,  without  military 
stores,  without  wealth,  without  strength,  against  the  most 
powerful  kingdom  on  the  earth  ;  a  declaration  of  war  made 
when  the  British  navy,  at  that  day  the  mistress.of  every 
sea,  was  hovering  along  the  coast  of  America,  looking  after 
defenseless  towns  and  villages  to  ravage  and  destroy.  It 
was  maJe  when  thousands  of  English  soldiers  were  upon 
our  soil,  and  when  the  principal  cities  of  America  were  in 
the  substantial  possession  of  the  enemy.  And  so,  I  say, 
all  things  considered,  it  was  the  bravest  political  document 
ever  signed  by  man.  And  if  it  was  physically  brave,  the 
moral  courage  of  the  document  is  almost  infinitely  beyond 
the  physical.  They  had  the  courage  not  only,  but  they 

47 


48  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

had  the  almost  infinite  wisdom,  to  declare  that  all  men  are 
created  equal. 

With  one  blow,  with  one  stroke  of  the  pen,  they  struck 
down  all  the  cruel,  heartless  barriers  that  aristocracy,  that 
priestcraft,  that  kingcraft  had  raised  between  man  and  man. 
They  struck  down  with  one  immortal  blow  that  infamous 
spirit  of  caste  that  makes  a  god  almost  a  beast,  and  a  beast 
almost  a  god.  With  one  word,  with  one  blow,  they  wiped 
away  and  utterly  destroyed  all  that  had  been  done  by  cen 
turies  of  war — centuries  of  hypocrisy — centuries  of  in 
justice. 

What  more  did  they  do  ?  Then  they  declared  that  each 
man  ha*  a  right  to  live.  And  what  does  that  mean?  It 
means  that  he  has  the  right  to  make  his  living.  It  means 
that  he  has  the  right  to  breathe  the  air,  to  work  the  land, 
that  he  stands  the  equal  of  every  other  human  being  be 
neath  the  shining  stars;  entitled  to  the  product  of  his  labor 
— the  labor  of  his  hand  and  of  his  brain. 

What  more?  That  every  man  has  the  right  to  pursue 
his  own  happiness  in  his  own  way.  Grander  words  than 
these  have  never  been  spoken  by  man. 

And  what  more  did  these  men  say  ?  They  laid  down 
the  doctrine  that  governments  were  instituted  among  men 
for  the  purpose  of  preserving  the  rights  of  the  people.  The 
old  idea  was  that  people  existed  solely  for  the  benefit  of 
the  State — that  is  to  say,  for  kings  and  nobles. 

The  old  idea  was  that  the  people  were  the  wards  of  king 
and  priest — that  their  bodies  belonged  to  one  and  their 
souls  to  the  other. 

A  REVELATION  AND  REVOLUTION. 

And  what  more?  That  the  people  are  the  source  of 
political  power.  That  was  not  only  a  revelation,  but  it  was 
a  revolution.  It  changed  the  ideas  of  people  with  regard 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  49 

to  the  source  of  political  power.  For  the  first  time  it  made 
human  beings  men.  What  was  the  old  idea?  The  old 
idea  was  that  no  political  power  came  from,  nor  in  any 
manner  belonged  to,  the  people.  The  old  idea  was  that 
the  political  power  came  from  the  clouds;  that  the  political 
power  came  in  some  miraculous  way  from  heaven  ;  that  it 
came  down  to  kings,  and  queens,  and  robbers.  That  was 
the  old  idea.  The  nobles  lived  upon  the  labor  of  the 
people ;  the  people  had  no  rights ;  the  nobles  stole  what 
they  had  and  divided  with  the  kings,  and  the  kings  pre 
tended  to  divide  what  they  stole  with  God  Almighty.  The 
source,  then,  of  political  power  was  from  above.  The 
people  were  responsible  to  the  nobles,  the  nobles  to  the 
king,  and  the  people  had  no  political  rights  whatever,  no 
more  than  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest.  The  kings  were 
responsible  to  God,  not  to  the  people.  The  kings  were 
responsible  to  the  clouds,  not  to  the  toiling  millions  they 
robbed  and  plundered. 

And  our  forefathers,  in  this  declaration  of  independence, 
reversed  this  thing,  and  said :  No,  the  people,  they  are  the 
source  of  political  power,  and  their  rulers,  these  presidents, 
these  kings,  are  but  the  agents  and  servants  of  the  great, 
sublime  people.  For  the  first  time,  really,  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  the  king  was  made  to  get  off  the  throne  and 
the  people  were  royally  seated  thereon.  The  people  be 
came  the  sovereigns,  and  the  old  sovereigns  became  the 
servants  and  the  agents  of  the  people.  It  is  hard  for  you 
and  me  now  to  imagine  even  the  immense  results  of  that 
change.  It  is  hard  for  you  and  me,  at  this  day,  to  under, 
stand  how  thoroughly  it  had  been  ingrained  in  the  brain  of 
almost  every  man,  that  the  king  had  some  wonderful  right 
over  him  ;  that  in  some  strange  way  the  king  owned  him  ; 
that  in  some  miraculous  manner  he  belonged,  ^body  and 
soul,  to  somebody  who  rode  on  a  horse,  to  somebody  with 


5o  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

epaulettes  on  his  shoulders,  and  a  tinsel  crown  upon  his 
brainless  head. 

Our  forefathers  had  been  educated  in  that  idea,  and  when 
they  first  lauded  on  American  shores  they  believed  it. 
They  thought  they  belonged  to  somebody,  and  that  they 
must  be  loyal  to  some  thief,  who  could  trace  his  pedigree 
back  to  antiquity's  most  successful  robber. 

It  took  a  long  time  for  them  to  get  that  idea  out  of  their 
heads  and  hearts.  They  were  three  thousand  miles  away 
from  the  despotisms  of  the  old  world,  and  every  wave  of 
the  sea  was  an  assistant  to  them.  The  distance  helped 
to  disenchant  their  minds  of  that  infamous  belief,  and  every 
mile  between  them  and  the  pomp  and  glory  of  monarchy 
helped  to  put  republican  ideas  and  thoughts  into  their  minds. 
Besides  that,  when  they  came  to  this  country,  when  the 
savage  was  in  the  forest  and  three  thousand  miles  of 
waves  on  the  other  side,  menaced  by  barbarians  on  the  one 
side,  and  famine  on  the  other,  they  learned  that  a  man  who 
had  courage,  a  man  who  had  thought,  was  as  good  as  any 
other  man  in  the  world,  and  they  built  up,  as  it  were,  in 
spite  of  themselves,  little  republics.  And  the  man  that 
had  the  most  nerve  and  heart  was  the  best  man,  whether 
he  had  any  noble  blood  in  his  veins  or  not. 

THE   EDUCATION   OF   NATURE. 

It  has  been  a  favorite  idea  with  me  that  our  forefathers 
were  educated  by  nature;  that  they  grew  grand  as  the 
continent  upon  which  they  landed  ;  that  the  great  rivers — 
the  wide  plains — the  splendid  lakes — the  lonely  forests — 
the  sublime  mountains — that  all  these  things  stole  into  and 
became  a  part  of  their  being,  and  they  grew  great  as  the 
country  in  which  they  lived.  They  began  to  hate  the 
narrow,  contracted  views  of  Europe.  They  were  educated 
by  their  surroundings,  aiid  every  little  colony  had  to  be, 


THREE   GREAT  SPEECHES.  5 1 

to  a  certain  extent,  a  republic.  The  kings  of  the  old 
world  endeavored  to  parcel  out  this  land  to  their  favorites. 
But  there  were  too  many  Indians.  There  was  too  much 
courage  required  for  them  to  take  and  keep  it,  and  so  men 
had  to  come  here  who  were  dissatisfied  with  the  old  country 
— who  were  dissatisfied  with  England,  dissatisfied  with 
France,  with  Germany,  with  Ireland  and  Holland.  The 
kings'  favorites  stayed  at  home.  Men  came  here  for  liberty, 
and  on  account  of  certain  principles  they  entertained  and 
held  dearer  than  life.  And  they  were  willing  to  work, 
willing  to  fell  the  forests,  to  fight  the  savages,  willing  to  go 
through  all  the  hardships,  perils  and  dangers  of  a  new 
country,  of  a  new  land  ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  our 
country  was  settled  by  brave  and  adventurous  spirits,  by 
men  who  had  opinions  of  their  own,  and  were  willing  to 
live  in  the  wild  forests  for  the  sake  of  expressing  those 
opinions,  even  it' they  expressed  them  only  to  trees,  rocks, 
and  savage  men.  The  best  blood  of  the  old  world  came  to 
the  new. 

THE    RISE   OF   THE    REPUBLIC — LIBERTY   AND   TOLERATION. 

When  they  first  came  over  they  did  not  have  a  great  deal 
of  political  philosophy,  nor  the  best  ideas  of  liberty.  We 
might  as  well  tell  the  truth.  When  the  puritans  first  came 
they  were  narrow.  They  did  not  understand  what  liberty 
meant-- what  religious  liberty,  what  political  liberty,  was; 
but  they  found  out  in  a  few  years.  There  was  one  feeling 
among  them  that  rises  to  their  eternal  honor  like  a  white 
shaft  to  the  clouds — they  were  in  favor  of  universal  educa 
tion.  Wherever  they  went  they  built  school  houses,  intro 
duced  books,  and  ideas  of  literature.  They  believed  that 
every  man  should  know  how  to  read  and  how  to  write,  and 
should  find  out  all  that  his  capacity  allowed  him  to  compre 
hend.  That  is  the  glory  of  the  Puritan  fathers. 


52  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

Tney  forgot  in  a  little  while  what  they  had  suffered,  and 
they  forgot  to  apply  the  principle  of  universal  liberty — of 
toleration.  Some  of  the  colonies  did  not  forget  it,  and  I 
want  to  give  credit  where  credit  should  be  given.  The 
Catholics  of  Maryland  were  the  first  people  on  the  new 
continent  to  declare  universal  religious  toleration.  Let  this 
be  remembered  to  their  eternal  honor.  Let  it  be  remem 
bered  to  the  disgrace  of  the  Protestant  government  of  Eng 
land,  that  it  caused  this  grand  law  to  be  repealed.  And  to 
the  honor  and  credit  of  the  Catholics  of  Maryland  let  it  bo 
remembered,  that  the  moment  they  got  back  into  powei 
they  re-enacted  the  old  law.  The  Baptists  of  Rhode  Isjand, 
also,  led  by  Roger  Williams,  were  in  favor  of  universal 
religious  liberty. 

IS'o  American  should  fail  to  honor  Roger  Williams.  He 
was  the  first  grand  advocate  of  the  liberty  of  the  soul.  He 
was  in  favor  of  the  eternal  divorce  of  Church  and  State. 
So  far  as  I  know,  he  was  the  only  man  at  that  time  in  this 
country  who  was  in  favor  of  real  religious  liberty.  While 
the  Catholics  of  Maryland  declared  in  favor  of  religious 
toleration,  they  had  no  idea  of  religious  liberty.  They 
would  not  allow  any  one  to  call  in  question  the  doctrine  of 
the  trinity,  or  the  inspiration  of  the  scriptures.  They  stood 
ready  with  branding-iron  and  gallows  to  burn  and  choko 
out  of  man  the  idea  that  he  had  a  right  to  think  and  to 
express  his  thoughts. 

So  many  religions  met  in  our  country — so  many  theories 
and  dogmas  came  in  contact — so  many  follies,  mistakes  and 
stupidities  became  acquainted  with  each  other,  that  religion 
began  to  1'all  somewhat  into  dispute.  Besides  this,  the 
question  of  a  new  nation  began  to  take  precedence  of  all 
others. 

The  people  were  too  much  interested  in  this  world  to 
quarrel  about  the  next.  The  preacher  was  lost  iu  tho 


THREE    GREAT   LECTURES.  63 

patriot.     The  bible  was  read  to  find  passages  against  kings. 

Everybody  was  discussing  the  rights  of  man.  Farmers 
and  mechanics  suddenly  became  statesmen,  and  in  every 
shop  and  cabin  nearly  every  question  was  asked  and 
answered. 

During  these  rears  of  political  excitement,  the  interest  in 

o  •/  > 

religion  abated  to  that  degree  that  a  common  purpose  ani 
mated  men  of  all  sects  and  creeds. 

At  last  our  fathers  became  tired  of  being  colonists — tired 
of  writing  and  reading  and  signing  petitions,  and  present 
ing  them,  on  their  bended  knees,  to  an  idiot  king.  They 
began  to  have  an  aspiration  to  form  a  new  nation,  to  be 
citizens  of  a  new  republic  instead  of  subjects  to  an  old 
monarchy.  They  had  the  idea — the  Puritans,  the  Catho 
lics,  the  Episcopalians,  the  Baptists,  the  Quakers,  and  a 
few  Free-Thinkers,  all  had  the  idea — that  they  would  like 
to  form  a  new  nation. 

Now,  do  not  understand  that  all  of  our  fathers  were  in 
favor  of  independence.  Do  not  understand  that  they  were  all 
like  Jefferson  ;  that  they  were  all  like  Adams  or  Lee ;  that 
they  were  all  like  Thomas  Paine  or  John  Hancock.  There 
were  thousands  and  thousands  of  them  who  were  opposed 
to  American  independence.  There  were  thousands  and 
thousands  who  said:  "When  you  say  men  are  created 
equal,  it  is  a  lie  ;  when  you  say  the  political  power  resides 
in  the  jTeat  body  of  the  people,  it  is  false."  Thousands 
and  thousands  of  them  said:  "  We  prefer  Great  Britain." 
But  the  men  who  were  in  favor  of  independence,  the  men 
who  knew  that  a  new  nation  must  be  born,  went  on  full  of 
hope  and  courage,  and  nothing  could  daunt  or  stop  or  stay 
the  heroic,  fearless  few. 

They  met  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  resolution  was  moved 
by  Lee,  of  Virginia,  that  the  colonies  ought  to  be  hide- 


54  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

pendent  States,  and  ought  to  dissolve  their  political  connec 
tion  with  Great  Britain. 

They  made  up  their  minds  that  a  new  nation  must  be 
formed.  Ail  nations  had  been,  so  to  speak,  the  wards  of 
some  church.  The  religious  idea  as  to  the  source  of  power 
had  been  at  the  foundation  of  all  governments,  and  had 
been  the  bane  and  curse  of  man. 

Happily  for  us,  there  was  no  church  strong  enough  to 
dictate  to  the  rest.  Fortunately  lor  us,  the  colonists  not 
only,  but  the  colonies  differed  widely  in  their  religious 
views.  There  were  the  Puritans  who  hated  the  Episco 
palians,  and  Episcopalians  who  hated  the  Catholics,  and 
the  Catholics  who  hated  both,  while  the  Quakers  held  them 
all  in  contempt.  There  they  were,  of  every  sort,  and  color, 
and  kind,  and  how  was  it  that  they  came  together?  They 
had  a  common  aspiration.  They  wanted  to  form  a  new 
nation.  More  than  that,  most  of  them  cordially  hated 
Great  Britain  ;  and  they  pledged  each  other  to  forget  these 
religious  prejudices,  for  a  time  at  least,  and  agreed  that 
there  should  be  only  one  religion  until  they  got  through, 
and  that  was  the  religion  of  patriotism.  They  solemnly 
agreed  that  the  new  nation  should  not  belong  to  any  paitic- 
ular  church,  but  that  it  should  secure  the  rights  of  all. 

Our  fathers  founded  the  first  secular  government  th.it  was 
ever  founded  in  this  world.  Recollect  that.  The  h'r&t  sec 
ular  government;  the  first  government  that  said  evt  ry 
church  has  exactly  the  same  rights,  and  no  more  ;  every 
religion  has  the  same  rights  and  1:0  more.  In  other  words 
our  fathers  were  the  first  men  who  had  the  sense,  had  the 
genius,  to  know  that  no  church  should  be  allowed  to  have 
a  sword;  that  it  should  be  allowed  only  to  exert  its  moral 
influence. 

You  might  as  well  have  a  government  united  by  force 
with  Art,  or  with  Poetry,  or  with  Oratory,  as  with  itelig- 


THREE    GREAT  SPEECHES.  55 

ion.  Religion  should  have  the  influence  upon  mankind 
that  its  goodness,  that  its  morality,  its  justice,  its  charity, 
its  reason  and  its  argument  give  it,  and  no  more.  Religion 
should  have  the  effect  upon  mankind  that  it  necessarily  has, 
and  no  more. 

So  our  fathers  said:  "We  shall  form  a  secular  govern 
ment,  and  under  the  flag  with  which  we  are  going  to  enrich 
the  air,  we  will  allow  every  man  to  worship  God  as  he 
thinks  best."  They  said  :  "  Religion  is  an  individual  thing 
between  each  man  and  his  Creator,  and  he  can  worship  as 
he  pleases  and  as  he  desires."  And  why  did  they  do  this? 
The  history  of  the  world  warned  them  that  the  liberty  of 
man  was  not  safe  in  the  clutch  and  grasp  of  any  church. 
They  had  read  of  and  seen  the  thumb-screws,  the  racks  and 
the  dungeons  of  the  inquisition.  They  knew  all  about  the 
hypocrisy  of  the  olden  time.  They  knew  that  the  church 
had  stood  side  by  side  wit  xhe  throne;  that  the  high 
priests  were  hypocrites,  and  vhat  the  kings  v/ere  robb^-s. 
They  also  knew  that  if  they  gave  to  any  church  ~,ower,  .'*• 
would  corrupt  the  best  chur.-h  in  the  world.  And  so  the 
said  that  power  must  not  reside  in  a  church,  nor  in  a  sect, 
but  power  must  be  wherevei  humanity  is — in  the  great  body 
of  the  people.  And  the  officers  and  servants  of  the  people 
must  be  responsible  to  tuem.  And  so  I  say  agpjn,  as  I 
said  in  the  commencement,  this  is  the  wisest,  the  profound- 
est,  the  bravest  political  document  that  ever  was  written 
and  signed  by  man. 

They  turned,  as  I  tell  you,  everything  squarely  about. 
They  derived  all  their  authority  from  the  people.  They 
did  away  forever  with  the  theological  idea  of  government. 

And  what  more  did  they  say  ?  They  said  that  whenever 
the  rulers  abused  this  authority,  this  power,  incapable  of 
destruction,  returned  to  the  people.  How  did  they  come 
to  say  this  ?  I  will  tell  you ;  they  were  pushed  into  if 


56  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

How  ?  They  felt  that  they  were  oppressed  ;  and  whenever 
a  man  feels  that  he  is  the  subject  of  injustice,  his  perception 
of  right  and  wrong  is  wonderfully  quickened. 

Nobody  was  ever  in  prison  wrongfully  who  did  not  be 
lieve  in  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  Nobody  ever  suffered 
wrongfully  without  instantly  having  ideas  of  justice. 

And  they  began  to  inquire  what  rights  the  king  of  Great 
Britain  had.  They  began  to  search  for  the  charter  of  his 
authority.  They  began  to  investigate  and  dig  down  to  the 
bed-rock  upon  which  society  must  be  founded,  arid  when 
they  got  there,  forced  there,  too,  by  their  oppressors,  forced 
against  their  own  prejudices  and  education,  they  found  at 
the  bottom  of  things,  not  lords,  not  nobles,  not  pulpits,  not 
thrones,  but  humanity,  and  the  rights  of  men. 

And  so  they  said,  we  are  men ;  we  are  MEN. 

A   NATION. 

They  found  out  they  were  men.  And  the  next  thing 
they  said  was :  "  We  will  be  free  men;  we  are  weary  of 
being  colonists  ;  we  are  tired  of  being  subjects  ;  we  are  men ; 
and  these  colonies  ought  to  be  states ;  and  these  states 
ought  to  be  a  nation ;  and  that  nation  ought  to  drive  the 
last  British  soldier  into  the  sea."  And  so  they  signed  that 
brave  declaration  of  independence. 

I  thank  every  one  of  them  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart 
for  signing  that  sublime  declaration.  I  thank  them  for  their 
courage — for  their  patriotism — for  their  wisdom — for  the 
splendid  confidence  in  themselves  and  in  the  human  race. 
I  thank  them  for  what  they  were,  and  for  what  we  are — 
for  what  they  did,  and  for  what  we  have  received — for  what 
they  suffered,  and  for  what  we  enjoy. 

What  would  we  have  been  if  we  had  remained  colonists 
and  subjects  ?  What  would  we  have  been  to-day  ?  No 
bodies — ready  to  get  down  on  our  knees  and  crawl  in  the 
very  dust  at  the  sight  of  somebody  that  was  supposed  to 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  5/ 

have  in  him  some  drop  of  blood  that  flowed  in  the  veins  of 
that  mailed  marauder  — William  the  Conqueror. 

They  signed  that  declaration  of  independence,  although 
they  knew  that  it  would  produce  a  long,  terrible,  and 
bloody  war.  They  looked  forward  and  saw  poverty,  depri 
vation,  gloom,  and  death.  But  they  also  saw,  on  the  wrecked 
clouds  of  war,  the  beautiful  bow  of  freedom. 

These  grand  men  were  enthusiasts;  and  the  world  has 
oJy  been  raised  by  enthusiasts.  In  every  country  there 
have  been  a  few  wLc  have  given  a  national  aspiration  to 
the  people.  The  enthusiasts  ef  1776  were  the  builders  and 
framers  of  this  great  and  splendid  government;  and  they 
were  the  men  who  saw,  although  others  did  not,  the  golden 
fringe  of  the  mantle  of  glory,  that  will  finally  cover  this 
world.  They  knew,  they  felt,  they  believed  they  would 
give  a  new  constellation  to  the  political  heavens — that  they 
would  make  the  Americans  a  grand  people — grand  as  the 
continent  upon  which  they  lived. 

The  war  commenced.  There  was  little  money  and  less 
credit.  The  new  nation  had  but  few  friends.  To  a  great 
extent,  each  soldier  of  freedom  had  to  clothe  and  feed  him 
self.  He  was  poor  and  pure — brave  and  good,  and  so  he 
went  to  the  fields  of  death  to  fight  for  the  rights  of  man. 

What  did  the  soldier  leave  when  he  went?  He  left  his 
wife  and  children. 

Did  he  leave  them  in  a  beautiful  home,  surrounded  by 
civilization,  in  the  repose  of  law,  in  the  security  of  a  great 
and  powerful  republic  ? 

No.  He  left  his  wife  and  children  on  the  edge,  on  the 
fringe  of  the  boundless  forest,  in  which  crouched  and  crept 
the  red  savage,  who  was  at  that  time  the  ally  of  the  still 
more  savage  Briton.  He  left  his  wife  to  defend  herself, 
and  he  left  the  prattling  babes  to  be  defended  by  their 
mother  and  by  nature.  The  mother  made  the  living ;  she  i/ 

\~ ' 


58  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

planted  the  corn  and  the  potatoes,  and  hoed  them  in  the 
sun,  raised  the  children,  and  in  the  dark  night  told  them 
about  their  brave  father,  and  the  "sacred  cause,"  she  told 
them  that  in  a  little  while  the  war  would  be  over,  and  father 
would  come  back  covered  with  honor  and  glory. 

Think  of  the  women,  of  the  sweet  children  who  listened 
for  the  footsteps  of  the  dead — who  waited  through  the  sad 
and  desolated  years  for  the  dear  ones  who  never  came. 

LIBERTY    OR   DEATH. 

The  soldiers  of  1776  did  not  march  away  with  music  and 
banners.  They  went  in  silence,  looked  at  and  gazed  alter 
by  eyes  filled  with  tears.  They  went  to  meet,  riot  an  equal, 
but  a  superior — to  fight  five  times  their  number — to  make  a 
desperate  stand — to  stop  the  advance  of  the  enemy,  and 
then,  when  their  ammunition  gave  out,  seek  the  protection 
of  rocks,  of  rivers,  and  of  hills. 

Let  me  say  here :  The  greatest  test  of  courage  on  tho 
earth  is  to  bear  defeat  without  losing  heart.  That  army  is 
the  bravest  that  can  be  whipped  the  greatest  number  of 
times  and  fight  again. 

Over  the  entire  territory,  so  to  speak,  then  settled  by  our 
forefathers,  they  were  driven  again  and  again.  Now  and 
then  they  would  meet  the  English  with  something  like  equal 
numbers,  and  then  the  eagle  of  victory  would  proudly  perch 
upon  the  stripes  and  stars.  And  so  they  went  or  •><*  best 
cntvy  could,  hoping  and  fighting  until  they  came  to  the  uarz 
and  somber  gloom  of  Valley  Forge. 

There  were  very  few  hearts  then  beneath  that  flag  that 
did  not  begin  to  think  that  the  struggle  was  useless  ;  that 
all  the  blood  and  treasure  had  been  spent  and  shed  in  vain. 
But  there  were  some  men  gifted  with  thaf  wonderful  proph 
ecy  that  fulfills  itself,  and  with  tua';  wonderful  magnetic 
power  that  makes  heroes  of  everybody  they  coino  i^  contact 
with.  And  so  our  fathers  went  through  the  gloom  of  that  ter- 


THREE   GREAT   SPEECHES.  5g 

rible  time,  and  still  fought  on.  Brave  men  wrote  g*and 
words,  cheering  the  despondent ;  brave  men  did  brave 
deeds;  the  rich  man  gave  his  wealth  ;  the  poor  man  gave 
his  life,  until  at  last,  by  the  victory  of  Yorl^town,  the  old 
banner  won  its  place  in  the  air,  and  became  glorious  forever. 

Seven  long  years  of  war — fighting  for  what?  For  the 
principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal — a  truth  that  no 
body  ever  disputed  except  a  scoundrel ;  nobody  in  the 
entire  history  of  this  world.  No  man  ever  denied  thai 
truth  who  was  not  a  rascal,  and  at  heart  a  thief;  never, 
never,  and  never  will.  What  else  were  they  fighting  for  ? 
Simply  that  in  America  every  man  should  have  a  right  to 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Nobody  ever 
denied  that  except  a  villian ;  never,  never.  It  has  been 
denied  by  kings — they  were  thieves.  It  has  been  denied 
by  statesmen — they  were  liars.  It  has  been  denied  by 
priests,  by  clergymen,  by  cardinals,  by  bishops  and  by 
popes — they  were  hypocrites. 

"What  else  were  they  fighting  for?  For  the  idea  that  all 
political  power  is  vested  in  the  great  body  of  the  people. 
They  make  all  the  money ;  do  all  the  work.  They  plow 
the  land ;  cut  down  the  forests ;  they  produce  everything 
that  is  produced.  Then  who  shall  say  what  shall  be  done 
with  what  is  produced  except  the  producer  ?  Is  it  the  non- 
producing  thief,  sitting  on  a  throne,  surrounded  by  vermin? 

The  history  of  civilization  is  the  history  of  the  slow  and 
painful  enfranchisement  of  the  human  race.  In  the  olden 
times  the  family  was  a  monarchy,  the  father  being  the  mon 
arch.  The  mother  and  children  were  the  veriest  slaves. 
The  will  of  the  father  was  the  supreme  law.  He  had  tin 
power  of  life  and  death.  It  took  thousands  of  }Tears  to  civil 
ize  this  father,  thousands  of  years  to  make  the  condition  oi 
wife  and  mother  and  children  even  tolerable.  A  few  fam 
ilies  constituted  a  tribe  ;  the  tribe  had  a  chief;  the  chief 


62  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

protect  the  rights  of  others.  It  is  a  sublime  thing  to  be 
free  and  just. 

Only  a  few  days  ago  I  stood  in  Independence  Hall— in 
that  little  room  where  was  signed  the  immortal  paper.  A 
little  room,  like  any  other;  and  it  did  not  seem  possible 
that  from  that  room  went  forth  ideas,  like  cherubim  and 
seraphim,  spreading  their  wings  over  a  continent,  and 
touching,  as  with  holy  fire,  the  hearts  of  men. 

In  a  few  moments  I  was  in  the  park,  where  are  gathered 
the  accomplishments  of  a  century.  Our  fathers  never 
dreamed  of  the  things  I  saw.  There  were  hundreds  of  loco 
motives,  with  their  nerves  of  steel  and  breath  of  flame — 
every  kind  of  machine,  with  whirling  wheels  and  the  myriad 
thoughts  of  men  that  have  been  wrought  in  iron,  brass  arid 
steel.  And  going  out  from  one  little  building  were  wires 
in  the  air,  stretching  to  every  civilized  nation,  and  they 
could  send  a  shining  messenger  in  a  moment  to  any  part  of 
the  world,  and  it  would  go  sweeping  under  the  waves  of  the 
sea  with  thoughts  and  words  within  its  glowing  heart  I 
saw  all  that  had  been  achieved  by  this  nation,  and  I  wished 
that  the  signers  of  the  Declaration — the  soldiers  of  the  Revo 
lution — could  see  what  a  century  of  freedom  has  produced. 
I  wished  they  could  see  the  fields  we  cultivate — the  rivers 
we  navigate — the  railroads  running  over  the  Alleghanies, 
far  into  what  was  then  the  unknown  forest — on  over  the 
broad  prairies — on  over  the  vast  plains — away  over  the 
mountains  of  the  West,  to  the  Golden  Gate  of  the  Pacific. 

All  this  is  the  result  of  a  hundred  years  of  freedom.  Are 
you  not  more  th;in  glad  that  in  1776  was  announced  the 
sublime  principle  that  political  power  resides  with  the  peo. 
pie?  that  our  fathers  then  made  up  their  minds  nevermore 
to  be  colonists  and  subjects,  but  that  they  would  be  free 
and  independent  citizens  of  America.  I  will  not  name  any 
of  the  grand  men  who  fought  for  liberty.  All  should  be 


THREE    GREAT   SPEECHES.  63 

named,  or  none.  I  feel  that  the  unknown  soldier  who  was 
down  without  even  his  name  being  remembered — who 
was  included  only  in  a  report  of  "a  hundred  killed,"  or 
"a  hundred  missing,"  nobody  knowing  even  the  number 
that  attached  to  his  august  corpse — is  entitled  to  as  deep 
and  heartfelt  thanks  as  the  titled  leader  who  fell  at  the  head 
of  the  host. 

THE   GRAND   FUTURE   OF   AMERICA. 

Standing  here  amid  the  sacred  memories  of  the  first,  on 
the  golden  threshold  of  the  second,  I  ask,  Will  the  second 
century  be  as  grand  as  the  first?  I  believe  it  will,  because 
we  are  growing  more  and  more  humane  ;  I  believe  there  is 
more  human  kindness,  and  a  greater  desire  to  help  one  an 
other,  than  in  all  the  world  besides. 

We  must  progress.  We  are  just  at  the  commencement 
of  invention.  The  steam  engine — the  telegraph — these  are 
but  the  toys  with  which  science  has  been  amused.  There 
will  be  grander  things ;  there  will  be  wider  and  higher  cul 
ture — a  grander  standard  of  character,  of  literature  and  art. 

We  have  now  half  as  many  millions  of  people  as  we  have 
years.  We  are  getting  more  real  solid  sense.  We  are 
writing  and  reading  more  books ;  we  are  struggling  more 
and  more  to  get  at  the  philosophy  of  life,  of  things — trying 
more  and  more  to  answer  the  questions  of  the  eternal 
Sphinx.  We  are  looking  in  every  direction — investigating ; 
in  short,  we  are  thinking  and  working. 

The  world  has  changed.  I  have  had  the  supreme  pleasure 
of  seeing  a  man — once  a  slave — sitting  in  the  seat  of  his 
former  master  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  I 
have  had  that  pleasure,  and  when  I  saw  it  my  eyes  were 
filled  with  tears,  I  felt  that  we  had  carried  out  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  that  we  have  given  reality  to  it,  and 
breathed  the  breath  of  life  into  its  every  word.  I  felt  that 
our  flag  would  float  over  and  protect  the  colored  man  and 


64  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

his  little  children — standing   straight  in  the  sun,  just  the 
same  as  though  he  wore  white  and  worth  a  million. 

All  who  stand  beneath  our  banner  are  free.  Ours  is  the 
only  fl.ig  that  has  in  reality  written  up  wi  it:  Liberty, 
Fraternity,  Equality — the  three  grandest  words  in  all  the 
languages  of  men.  Liberty  :  Give  to  every  man  the  fruit 
of  his  own  labor — the  labor  of  his  hand  and  of  his  brain. 
Fraternity:  Every  man  in  the  right  is  my  brother.  Equal 
ity  :  The  rights  of  all  are  equal.  No  race,  no  color,  no 
previous  condition,  can  change  the  rights  of  men.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  has  at  last  been  carried  out  in 
letter  and  in  spirit.  The  second  century  will  be  grander 
than  the  first.  To-day  the  black  man  looks  upon  his  child 
and  says :  The  avenues  of  distinction  are  open  to  you — up  in 
your  brow  may  fall  the  civic  wreath.  We  are  celebrating 
the  courage  and  wisdom  of  our  fathers,  and  the  glad  shout 
of  a  free  people,  the  anthem  of  a  grand  nation,  commencing 
at  the  Atlantic,  is  following  the  sun  to  the  Pacific,  across  a 
continent  of  happy  homes.  We  are  a  great  people.  Three 
millions  have  increased  to  fifty — thirteen  states  to  thirty- 
eight  We  have  better  homes,  and  more  of  the  conveni 
ences  of  life  than  any  other  people  upon  the  face  of  the 
globe.  The  farmers  of  our  country  live  better  than  did 
the  kings  and  princes  two  hundred  years  ago — and  they 
have  twice  as  much  sense  and  heart.  Liberty  and  labor 
have  given  us  all.  Remember  that  all  men  have  equal 
rights.  .Remember  that  the  man  who  acts  best  his  part — 
who  loves  his  friends  the  best — is  most  willing  to  help 
others — truest  to  the  obligation — who  has  the  best  heart — 
the  most  feeling — the  deepest  sympathies — and  who  freely 
gives  to  others  the  rights  that  he  claims  for  himself,  is  the 
best  man.  We  have  disfranchised  the  aristocrats  of  the 
air  a»d  have  given  one  country  to  mankind. 


COL.  INGERSOLL  S  FUNERAL  ORATION. 


65 


Col.  Ingersoll's  Funeral  Oration  at  His  Brother's 
Grave. 

The  funeral  of  Hon.  Ebon  C.  Ingersoll,  brother  of  Col. 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  took  place  at  his  residence  in  Wash 
ington,  D.  C.,  June  2,  1879.  The  ceremonies  were  ex 
tremely  simple,  consisting  merely  of  viewing  the  remains 
by  relatives  and  friends,  and  a  funeral  oration  by  Col. 
Ingersoll.  A  large  number  of  distinguished  gentlemen 
were  present.  Soon  after  Mr.  Ingersoll  began  to  read  his 
eloquent  characterization  of  the  dead,  his  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  He  tried  to  hide  them  behind  his  eye-glasses,  but 
he  could  not  do  it,  and  finally  he  bowed  his  head  upon  the 
dead  man's  coffin  in  uncontrollable  grief.  It  was  after 


66  COL.  INGERSOLL'S 

some  delay  and  the  greatest  efforts  at  self-mastery,  that 
Col.  Ingersoll  was  able  to  finish  reading  his  address,  which 
was  as  follows: 

MY  FRIENDS  :  1  am  going  to  do  that  which  the  dead  often 
promised  he  would  do  for  me.  The  loved  and  loving 
brother,  husband,  father,  friend,  died  where  manhood's 
morning  almost  touches  noon,  and  while  the  shadows  still 
were  falling  towards  the  West.  He  had  not  passed  on 
life's  highway  the  stone  that  marks  the  highest  point,  but 
being  weary  for  a  moment  he  laid  down  by  the  wavsido, 
and,  using  his  burden  for  a  pillow,  fell  into  that  dreamless 
sleep  that  kisses  down  his  eyelids  still.  While  yet  in  love 
with  life  and  raptured  with  the  world,  he  passed  to  silence 
and  pathetic  dust.  Yet,  after  all,  it  may  be  best,  just  in 
the  happiest,  sunniest  hour  of  all  the  voyage,  while  eager 
winds  are  kissing  every  sail,  to  dash  against  the  unseen 
rock,  and  in  an  instant  hear  the  billows  roar  a  sunken  ship. 
For,  whether  in  mid-sea  or  among  the  breakers  of  the  far 
ther  shore,  a  wreck  must  mark  at  last  the  end  of  each  and 
all.  And  every  life,  no  matter  if  its  every  hour  is  rich 
with  love  and  every  moment  jeweled  with  a  joy,  will,  at 
its  close,  become  a  tragedy,  as  sad,  and  deep,  and  dark 
as  can  be  woven  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  mystery  and 
death.  This  brave  and  tender  man  in  every  storm  of 
life  was  oak  and  rock,  but  in  the  sunshine  he  was  vine  and 
flower.  He  was  the  friend  of  all  heroic  souls.  He  climbed 
the  heights  and  left  all  superstitions  far  below,  while  on 
his  forehead  fell  the  golden  dawning  of  a  grander  day. 
He  loved  the  beautiful,  and  was  with  color,  form  and  mu 
sic  touched  to  tears.  He  sided  with  the  weak,  and  with 
a  willing  hand  gave  alms;  with  loyal  heart  and  with  the 
purest  hand  he  faithfully  discharged  all  public  trusts.  He 
was  a  worshipper  of  liberty  and  a  friend  of  the  oppressed. 
A  thousand  times  I  have  heard  him  quote  the  words: 


FUNERAL  ORATION.  67 

"For  justice  all  place  a  temple  and  all  season  summer." 
He  believed  that  happiness  was  the  only  good,  reason  the 
only  torch,  justice  the  only  worshipper,  humanity  the  only 
religion,  and  love  the  priest. 

He  added  to  the  sum  of  human  joy,  and  were  every  one 
for  whom  he  did  some  loving  service  to  bring  a  blossom  to 
his  grave  he  would  sleep  to-night  beneath  a  wilderness  of 
flowers.  Lite  is  a  narrow  vale  between  the  cold  and  barren 
peaks  of  two  eternities.  We  strive  in  vain  to  look  beyond 
the  heights.  We  cry  aloud,  and  the  only  answer  is  the 
echo  of  our  wailing  cry.  From  the  voiceless  lips  of  the 
unreplying  dead  there  comes  no  word  ;  but  in  the  night  of 
death  hope  sees  a  star  and  listening  love  can  hear  the  rus 
tle  of  a  wing.  He  who  sleeps  here,  when  dying,  mistak 
ing  the  approach  of  death  for  the  return  of  health,  whis 
pered  with  his  latest  breath,  "I  am  better  now."  Let  us 
believe,  in  spite  of  doubts  and  dogmas  and  tears  and  fears 
that  these  dear  words  are  true  of  all  the  countless  dead. 
And  now,  to  you  who  have  been  chosen  from  among  the 
many  men  he  loved  to  do  the  last  sad  office  for  the  dead, 
we  give  his  sacred  dust.  Speech  cannot  contain  our  love. 
There  was — there  is — no  gentler,  stronger,  manlier  man. 


DEAFNESS! 


The  new  scientific  invention,  the 
AUDIPHONR, 

assists  the  DEAF  to  hear  through  ihe 
medium  of  the  TEETH.  It  Is  convenient 
to  carry  and  use.  Thousands  tire  note 
in  use  and  in  every  country  in  the  world. 

Invented  by  B.  S.  RHODES,  Chicago, 

Originally  for  His  Own  Uce. 

It  is  sold  at  so  low  a  price  that  every 
one  afflic'ed  with  defective  hearing  can 
afford  to  have  one.  For  full  particulars, 

Address, 

RHODES  &  McSLURE, 

No.  II  Methodist  Church  Block,  Chicago. 


NEW  I  POPULAR  BOOKS 


PUBLISHED  BY 


Garficld— Life  and  Assassination 8vo. 

"       —The  "World's  Eulogies " 

"       — Life  ard  Eulogies " 

Ingersoll— Mistakes.  No.  1,  "  Mistakes  of  Moses,"    " 

"       — "  Ans\vcrs,"[No.  2,  '  Skulls". " 

"       — Mistakes,  No.  3,  Thomas  Paine " 


— New  Departures,  "  What  Shall  We  do 
to  be  Saved?'' " 

— Mistakes  and  Answers,  Nos.  1  and  2-- 
— Wit,  Wisdom,  Eloquence  and  Speeches 


"      — Three  Speeches 
Lincoln's  Stories  .. 


"  "       in  German 

<(  II  II 

Moody's  Anecdotes 

«  it 

Child  Stories 

Entertaining  Anecdotes 

<«  it 

General  Grant — Stories  and  Sketches . 

II     •  II  U  II 

Edison  and  His  Inventions 

ii  it  11 

Chicago — Stories  and  Sketches 


Four  Flirts 

Too  Much  Alike.. 
320  Pages  Stories. 


,  paper,  228  pages 

"       256  " 

cloth,  484  " 

paper  128  " 

"       150  " 

"       158  " 

cloth,     "  " 

paper,  125  " 

cloth,  278  " 

paper.  156  " 

cloth,     "  " 

paper,   64  " 

"      192  " 

cloth,     "  " 

paper,    "  " 

cloth,     •«  •• 

paper,  200  " 

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paper,  256  " 
cloth,    " 
paper,  216 
cloth,    " 
paper,  178 
cloth,    " 
paper,  200 
cloth,    " 
paper,  118 

"       128 

"      320 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  752  429     1 


